Ahmose II
| Amasis II | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Ahmose II | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Kepala patung firaun Amasis II | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Firaun | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Masa pemerintahan | 570–526 SM (Dinasti ke-26 Mesir) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pendahulu | Apries | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pengganti | Psamtik III | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pasangan | Tentkheta, ibu Psamtik III Nakhtubasterau Tadiasir? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Anak | Psamtik III Pasenenkhonsu Ahmose (D) Tashereniset II ? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ibu | Tashereniset I | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Meninggal | 526 SM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Amasis II (bahasa Yunani Kuno: Ἄμασις) atau Ahmose II adalah seorang firaun Mesir (memerintah 570 SM – 526 SM) dari Dinasti kedua puluh enam Mesir, yang merebut tahta dari firaun Hofra, dan berkedudukan di Sais. Ia merupakan raja besar terakhir Mesir sebelum Mesir dikuasai oleh kekaisaran Persia.[2]
Some information is known about the family origins of Amasis: his mother was a certain Tashereniset as a bust statue of this lady, which is today located in the British Museum, shows.[3] A stone block from Mehallet el-Kubra also establishes that his maternal grandmother—Tashereniset's mother—was a certain Tjenmutetj.[4]
Herodotus describes how Amasis II would eventually cause a confrontation with the Persian armies. According to Herodotus, Amasis, was asked by Cambyses II or Cyrus the Great for an Egyptian ophthalmologist on good terms. Amasis seems to have complied by forcing an Egyptian physician into mandatory labor, causing him to leave his family behind in Egypt and move to Persia in forced exile. In an attempt to exact revenge for his forced exile, the physician would grow very close to Cambyses and would suggest that Cambyses should ask Amasis for a daughter in marriage in order to solidify his bonds with the Egyptians. Cambyses complied and requested a daughter of Amasis for marriage.[5]
Amasis, worrying that his daughter would be a concubine to the Persian king, refused to give up his offspring; Amasis also was not willing to take on the Persian empire, so he concocted a trickery in which he forced the daughter of the ex-pharaoh Apries, whom Herodotus explicitly confirms to have been killed by Amasis, to go to Persia instead of his own offspring.[5][6][7]
This daughter of Apries was none other than Nitetis, who was as per Herodotus's account, "tall and beautiful." Nitetis naturally betrayed Amasis and upon being greeted by the Persian king explained Amasis's trickery and her true origins. This infuriated Cambyses and he vowed to take revenge for it. Amasis would die before Cambyses reached him, but his heir and son Psamtik III would be defeated by the Persians.[5][7]
Herodotus also describes that just like his predecessor, Amasis II relied on Greek mercenaries and council men. One such figure was Phanes of Halicarnassus, who would later on leave Amasis, for reasons Herodotus does not clearly know but suspects were personal between the two figures. Amasis would send one of his eunuchs to capture Phanes, but the eunuch is bested by the wise council man and Phanes flees to Persia, meeting up with Cambyses providing advice in his invasion of Egypt. Egypt would finally be lost to Persians during the battle of Pelusium.[7]
Egypt's wealth
Although Amasis thus appears first as champion of the disparaged native, he had the good sense to cultivate the friendship of the Greek world, and brought Egypt into closer touch with it than ever before. Herodotus relates that under his prudent administration, Egypt reached a new level of wealth; Amasis adorned the temples of Lower Egypt especially with splendid monolithic shrines and other monuments (his activity here is proved by existing remains). For example, a temple built by him was excavated at Tell Nebesha.
Amasis assigned the commercial colony of Naucratis on the Canopic branch of the Nile to the Greeks, and when the temple of Delphi was burnt, he contributed 1,000 talents to the rebuilding. He also married a Greek princess named Ladice daughter of King Battus III and made alliances with Polycrates of Samos and Croesus of Lydia.
Under Amasis or Ahmose II, Egypt's agricultural based economy reached its zenith. Herodotus who visited Egypt less than a century after Amasis II's death writes that:
It is said that it was during the reign of Ahmose II that Egypt attained its highest level of prosperity both in respect of what the river gave the land and in respect of what the land yielded to men and that the number of inhabited cities at that time reached in total 20,000[8]
His kingdom consisted probably of Egypt only, as far as the First Cataract, but to this he added Cyprus, and his influence was great in Cyrene. In his fourth year (c.567 B.C.E.), Amasis was able to defeat an invasion of Egypt by the Babylonians under Nebuchadrezzar II; henceforth, the Babylonians experienced sufficient difficulties controlling their empire that they were forced to abandon future attacks against Amasis.[9] However, Amasis was later faced with a more formidable enemy with the rise of Persia under Cyrus who ascended to the throne in 559 B.C.E.; his final years were preoccupied by the threat of the impending Persian onslaught against Egypt.[10] With great strategic skill, Cyrus had destroyed Lydia in 546 B.C.E. and finally defeated the Babylonians in 538 B.C.E. which left Amasis with no major Near Eastern allies to counter Persia's increasing military might.[10] Amasis reacted by cultivating closer ties with the Greek states to counter the future Persian invasion into Egypt but was fortunate to have died in 526 B.C.E. shortly before the Persians attacked.[10] The final assault instead fell upon his son Psamtik III, whom the Persians defeated in 525 B.C.E. after a reign of only six months.[11] -->
Pemakaman dan penghinaan
Amasis II wafat pada tahun 526 SM. Ia dimakamkan di royal necropolis (pemakaman raja-raja) di Sais. Sekarang makamnya tidak dapat ditemukan. Herodotus menulis:
[Itu] merupakan bangunan besar tertutup terbuat dari batu, dihiasi dengan pilar-pilar yang diukir menyerupai pohon palem, dan ornamen mahal lainnya. Di dalam kubah itu terdapat sebuah kamar berpintu ganda, di belakang pintu itu terdapat makamnya.[12]
Herodotus juga mencatat penghinaan terhadap mumi Amasis ketika raja Persia, Cambyses II, merebut Mesir dan mengakhiri Dinasti ke-26 atau Periode Saite:
[T]idak lama setelah [... Cambyses] memasuki istana Amasis, ia memerintahkan mayatnya [Amasis] diambil dari makam tempatnya disemayamkan. Setelah itu, ia memerintahkan penghinaan seburuk mungkin, misalnya mencambuki, menusuki dengan tombak, mencabuti rambut-rambutnya. [... Ka]rena mayat itu telah diawetkan dan tidak bisa terpotong kecil-kecil ketika dipukuli, Cambyses memerintahkan untuk membakarnya.[13]
Foto
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Ukiran yang menunjukkan "Amasis" dari kuil di Karnak -
Papirus, ditulis dalam huruf demotik pada tahun ke-35 pemerintahan Amasis II, dipamerkan di Louvre -
Pemberian hak tanah dari seseorang kepada sebuah kuil. Bertarikh tahun pertama pemerintahan Amasis II, dipamerkan di Louvre -
Sebuah prasasti (stele) bertarikh tahun pemerintahan ke-23 Amasis, dipamerkan di Louvre
Lihat pula
Referensi
- ^ a b Peter A. Clayton (2006). Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-By-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt. hlm. 195. ISBN 978-0-500-28628-9.
- ^ Lloyd, Alan Brian (1996), "Amasis", dalam Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Anthony, Oxford Classical Dictionary (edisi ke-3rd), Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-521693-8
- ^ Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson, 2004. pp.245 & 247
- ^ Dodson & Hilton, pp.245 & 247
- ^ a b c Herodotus (1737). The History of Herodotus Volume I,Book II. D. Midwinter. hlm. 246–250.
- ^ Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1837). Manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians: including their private life, government, laws, art, manufactures, religions, and early history; derived from a comparison of the paintings, sculptures, and monuments still existing, with the accounts of ancient authors. Illustrated by drawings of those subjects, Volume 1. J. Murray. hlm. 195.
- ^ a b c Herodotus (Trans.) Robin Waterfield, Carolyn Dewald (1998). The Histories. Oxford University Press, US. hlm. 170. ISBN 978-0-19-158955-3.
- ^ Herodotus, (II, 177, 1)
- ^ Alan B. Lloyd, 'The Late Period' in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (ed. Ian Shaw), Oxford Univ. Press 2002 paperback, pp.381-82
- ^ a b c Lloyd. (2002) p.382
- ^ The New Encyclopædia Britannica: Micropædia, Vol.9 15th edition, 2003. p.756
- ^ Amasis
- ^ Herodotus, Historia, Buku III, Pasal 16
Pustaka tambahan
- W. M. Flinders Petrie, History, vol. iii.
- James Henry Breasted, History and Historical Documents, vol. iv. p. 509
- Gaston Maspero, Les Empires
- Nos ancêtres de l'Antiquité, 1991, Christian Settipani, p. 161
Artikel ini menyertakan teks dari suatu terbitan yang sekarang berada pada ranah publik: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Amasis". Encyclopædia Britannica (edisi ke-11). Cambridge University Press.
