45. Amulet of King Shabaka

The amulet bead names king Shabaka (or Shabaqo), another son of Kashta and younger brother of Piye. Shabaka was interred at el-Kurru, the earliest Kushite cemetery of the ancestral capital of Napata. The concave front side of the bead, which is longitudinally pierced for threading, is carved with an inscription that reads: ‘Son of Ra, Shabaqa, given life forever’. Several of these amuletic ‘name beads’ of this king are known, and some were reportedly discovered at Karnak in Thebes. Shabaka was also active in the north part of the kingdom, in Memphis and Heliopolis. Not only did he associate himself with Ra, the sun god of Heliopolis; he helped preserve the theology of Ptah, the divine craftsman god worshipped in Memphis. The famous Shabaka stone, bearing an inscription detailing Memphite theological ideas, was part of a temple the king built there to honor the god while legitimizing himself. Embracing Egyptian religious beliefs, symbols and practices permitted the Kushite kings to strengthen their legitimacy, but this was not just a political ploy. It was facilitated by the syncretization of Egyptian and Nubian practices and the adaptation of certain Egyptian beliefs prior to the Twenty-Fifth dynasty.