King Arqamani was a Kushite King of Meroë

Meroë

Meroë Meroitic: Medewi or Bedewi; Arabic: and Meruwi) is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah...

 dating to the late 3rd to early 2nd century BCE who is known from inscriptions from Philae

Philae

Philae is an island in the Nile River and the previous site of an Ancient Egyptian temple complex in southern Egypt...

 and Dakka

Temple of Dakka

Ad-Dakka was a place in Lower Nubia, which was located approximately 100 km south of the Aswan...

. Identified as Meroitic

Meroitic script

The Meroitic script is an alphabetic script originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroë/Kush. It was developed in the Napatan Period , and first appears in the 2nd century BCE. For a time, it was also possibly used to write the Nubian...

 for Ergamenes king of Meroë

Meroë

Meroë Meroitic: Medewi or Bedewi; Arabic: and Meruwi) is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah...

 or Upper Ethiopia at the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus

Ptolemy II Philadelphus

Ptolemy II Philadelphus was the king of Ptolemaic Egypt from 283 BCE to 246 BCE. He was the son of the founder of the Ptolemaic kingdom Ptolemy I Soter and Berenice, and was educated by Philitas of Cos...

 mentioned by Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...

, though it is possible that several kings were fused

Conflation

Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, become confused until there seems to be only a single identity — the differences appear to become lost...

 into a single figure.

Titles

• Horus name: Djeret-netjer-en-perefkai(..)ef-Setepenamunre-suab-tawy ("The God's Hand in his temple, Whose arm is raised (..) Chosen of Amun to purify the Lands")
• Prenomen: Djeretankhamun ("Living hand of Amun") with epithet Titre ("Image of Re")
• Nomen: Arqamani with epithet Ankhdjet-mery-iset.

Török mentions mortuary names. The mortuary Horus name is Kashy-netjery-kheper ("The Kushite whose coming into being is divine"). The nomen is accompanied by Ankhdjet-mery-iset (Egyptian) and Mkltk Istrk which is written in Meroitic script

Meroitic script

The Meroitic script is an alphabetic script originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroë/Kush. It was developed in the Napatan Period , and first appears in the 2nd century BCE. For a time, it was also possibly used to write the Nubian...

 and whose meaning is not known.

Monuments and Inscriptions

Arqamanni is known from inscriptions from Kalabsha, Philae

Philae

Philae is an island in the Nile River and the previous site of an Ancient Egyptian temple complex in southern Egypt...

 and Dakka

Temple of Dakka

Ad-Dakka was a place in Lower Nubia, which was located approximately 100 km south of the Aswan...

. He was buried in a pyramid in Meroë

Pyramids of Meroe (Begarawiyah)

Near Meroe three royal cemeteries were constructed.* South Cemetery features nine royal pyramids. Four of the pyramids belonged to Kings and five belonged to queens. One hundred ninety-five other tombs complete the cemetery....

: Beg. N 7.

Diodorus Siculus story of Ergamenes

Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus

Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian who flourished between 60 and 30 BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily . With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca...

 provides us with the Hellenistic view on the Kushite King of Meroë. It is possible that Greeks fused

Conflation

Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, become confused until there seems to be only a single identity — the differences appear to become lost...

 several rulers with similar names into a single figure named Ergamenes, however identification with Arqamani seems reasonable. Kings Ptolemy II Philadelphus

Ptolemy II Philadelphus

Ptolemy II Philadelphus was the king of Ptolemaic Egypt from 283 BCE to 246 BCE. He was the son of the founder of the Ptolemaic kingdom Ptolemy I Soter and Berenice, and was educated by Philitas of Cos...

 and Ergamenes lived in peace; moreover, Ergamenes was instructed in Greek philosophy

Greek philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BCE and continued through the Hellenistic period, at which point Ancient Greece was incorporated in the Roman Empire...

, favored Greek art

Greek art

Greek art began in the Cycladic and Minoan prehistorical civilization, and gave birth to Western classical art in the ancient period...

 and its way of life. Ergamenes resented the tradition of ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 and the Ethiopian priests control over the King's power and preferred the absolute power

Autocracy

An autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek : and , and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy and democracy...

 of his neighbor, Philadelphus.

Further reading

• Laszlo Török, in: Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, Vol. II, Bergen 1996, 660-662