Stele of Piye

The Stele of Piye is a granite monument commissioned in the twenty first year of the reign of the Kushite king Piye, around 727 BC, recording his military conquest of Egypt during the Twenty fifth Dynasty. Discovered in 1862 in the temple of Amun at Jebel Barkal, the stele stands about six feet tall and describes Piye's invasion of Egypt in his twentieth regnal year, including battles at Hermopolis and Memphis and the eventual submission of the Lower Egyptian ruler Tefnakht of Sais and other local rulers. The text presents Piye as a pious and divinely favored king acting under the god Amun's authority. Historians read the stele as a work of royal propaganda justifying Piye's claim to rule all of Egypt and documenting the union of Egypt and Nubia under Kushite kingship.