The reign of Osorkon I, who dies…
897 BCE to 886 BCE
The reign of Osorkon I, who dies in 887 BCE, has been peaceful and uneventful.
His tomb has never been found.
Although Osorkon I is thought to have been directly succeeded by his son Takelot I, it is possible that another ruler, Heqakheperre Shoshenq II, intervened briefly between these two kings because Takelot I was a son of Osorkon I through Queen Tashedkhons, a secondary wife of this king.
In contrast, Osorkon I's senior wife was Queen Maatkare B, who may have been Shoshenq II's mother.
However, Shoshenq II could also have been another son of Shoshenq I since the latter was the only other king to be mentioned in objects from Shoshenq II's intact royal tomb at Tanis aside from Shoshenq II himself.
These objects are inscribed with either Shoshenq I's praenomen Hedjkheperre Shoshenq (though this is not certain as it requires reading the objects as a massive hierogylyphic text), or Shoshenq, Great Chief of the Meshwesh, which was Shoshenq I's title before he became king.
Since Derry's forensic examination of his mummy reveals him to be a man in his fifties upon his death, Shoshenq II could have lived beyond Osorkon's thirty-five-year reign and Takelot I's thirteen-year reign to assumed the throne for a few short years.
An argument against this hypothesis is the fact that most kings of the period were commonly named after their grandfathers, and not their fathers.
While the British scholar Kenneth A. Kitchen views Shoshenq II to be the High Priest of Amun at Thebes Shoshenq C, and a short-lived coregent of Osorkon I who predeceased his father, the well-respected German Egyptologist Jürgen von Beckerath in his seminal 1997 book, Chronologie des Pharaonischen Ägypten, maintains that Shoshenq II was rather an independent king of Tanis who ruled the Twenty-second Dynasty in his own right for about two years.
Von Beckerath's hypothesis is supported by the fact that Shoshenq II employed a complete royal titulary along with a distinct prenomen Heqakheperre and his intact tomb at Tanis was filled with numerous treasures including jeweled pectorals and bracelets, an impressive falcon-headed silver coffin and a gold face mask—items which indicate a genuine king of the Twenty-second Dynasty.
More significantly, however, no mention of Osorkon I's name was preserved on any ushabtis, jars, jewelry or other objects within Shoshenq II's tomb.
This situation would be improbable if he was indeed Osorkon I's son, and was buried by his father, as Kitchen's Chronology suggests.
These facts, taken together, imply that Sheshonq II ruled on his own accord at Tanis and was not a mere coregent.
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