ABSTRACT
With the close of this period the New Empire comes to an end, and we are on the threshold of the Renaissance of the Egyptian kingdom with all its ancient arts and sciences brought into connexion with the Greece of the seventh century before Christ. The beginning of this period is marked by a slight revival of Egyptian power under the energetic king Shashanq, who put an end to the two rival but weak dynasties of Tanis and Thebes, and united the kingdoms of the South and North under his sceptre. With the end of the dynasty of priest-kings Thebes ceased to be the capital of Egypt, and its glory, which had lasted for two thousand years, departed from it. The progress of its decay was materially hastened by its sack in the year 661 B.c., by the Assyrians in the reign of Ashur-bani-pal, and by the time of the rule of the Ptolemies the great city was, comparatively speaking, in ruins. Shashanq, the first king of the XXIInd Dynasty, fixed the seat of his power at Bubastis, in the eastern part of the Delta, a city which had up to that time occupied a purely subordinate position.
