During a feeble and industrially and economically declining 21st Dynasty, the ancestors of a priest to the [[Egypt]]ian god and mercenary leader named Sheshonk assumed hereditary offices in Heracleopolis in Libya, which increased as a principality over time until Sheshonk seized the royal power and became Pharoah in Egypt, ruling over the territories centered in Heracleopolis, Memphis and Thebes as [[Shishak|Sheshonk I]]. He gave King [[Solomon]] the city of Gezer, but under the Judean kingship of [[Rehoboam]] plundered Judah and Israel and at Thebes commissioned the completion of the largest temple court in existence that previous dynasties had begun, containing a relief of captured Judean and Israeli prisoners. | During a feeble and industrially and economically declining 21st Dynasty, the ancestors of a priest to the [[Egypt]]ian god and mercenary leader named Sheshonk assumed hereditary offices in Heracleopolis in Libya, which increased as a principality over time until Sheshonk seized the royal power and became Pharoah in Egypt, ruling over the territories centered in Heracleopolis, Memphis and Thebes as [[Shishak|Sheshonk I]]. He gave King [[Solomon]] the city of Gezer, but under the Judean kingship of [[Rehoboam]] plundered Judah and Israel and at Thebes commissioned the completion of the largest temple court in existence that previous dynasties had begun, containing a relief of captured Judean and Israeli prisoners. |