Psammuthes

Psammuthes or Psammuthis,¹ was a pharaoh of the Twenty-ninth Dynasty of Egypt during 392/1 BC.

Biography

The place of this king in the dynasty is a matter of debate. Although he is mentioned in three different epitomes of Manetho's Aegyptiaca (Africanus, Eusebius and the Armenian version of the latter) and in the Demotic Chronicle, the sequence of kings is different among these sources and it is unclear if Psammuthes succeeded Hakor, or vice versa.¹

According to a hypothesis of the Egyptologist John D. Ray, upon the death of Nepherites I in 393 BC, the throne passed to his son and successor, which is likely to have been Hakor. However, it seems that in his Year 2 a usurper, Psammuthes (a hellenized form of the Egyptian name Pasherienmut²), seized power and deposed Hakor, while proclaiming himself pharaoh.¹

Both Manetho and the Demotic Chronicle give to Psammuthes a reign length of a year, agreeing with the highest date given by archaeological records, a Mother of Apis stele recording his "Year 1, fourth month of Peret". Before the year 2 of Psammuthes, and thus before the "official" year 3 of Hakor, the latter in some way resumed power, and then continued to date his monuments since his first coronation date, simply pretending that the usurper never existed.