Piankh and Herihor: art, ostraca, and accession in perspective

Due to the lack of firm evidence from which a precise historical narrative for the Late New Kingdom Period may be satisfactorily reconstructed many events within this period continue to attract some degree of controversy in modern scholarly discussion, not least of these the matter of the succession of the senior Theban officials, Piankh and Herihor, each of whom held office as the first servant of Amun under the last of the Ramesside rulers, Ramesses XI. In recent years proposals have veered from the more usual argument as to whether Piankh followed Herihor or vice-versa, and a further possibility has been suggested: that the role of first servant of Amun was held by Piankh during the period of Herihor’s kingship. However, it seems that, in making such claims, there has been a tendency to either dismiss or undervalue the nature of the extant evidence relating to the protagonists in question This short study will therefore offer some alternative interpretation of the pertinent material.