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The Egypto-Persian king and the presentation of dominion in the Achaemenid era

Wasmuth, Melanie. 2017. Ägypto-persische Herrscher- und Herrschaftspräsentation in der Achämenidenzeit.  Franz Steiner Verlag.

Iconographic and textual treatments are at the centre of Achaemenid studies which identify the Persian Great King as sovereign of Egypt. Melanie Wasmuth declares there are fundamental and  wide-spreading sources in Egypt that one possibly could advantage to investigate Persian rulership over Egypt.
At least for Darius I, considering the sources, one can see, a ruler could play four different roles: as a Persian Great King, as an Egyptian pharaoh, as an Egyptian god and as Egypto-Persian ruler. Notably, the combination of two absolute concept of Persian Great King and Egyptian pharaoh into one notion, Egypto-Persian ruler, sheds the lights on strategies of the presentation of dominion and cross-cultural construction of identity. In Persis, the focus is primarily on the representation of the claim to global power as a Persian Great King. However, an Egypto-Persian kingship is propagated in the Achaemenid empire at least since Xerxes and explicitly in the context of the reintegration of Egypt by Artaxerxes III.

There is also an appendix written by Wouter Henkelman entitled “Egyptians in the Persepolis Archives”, available on his page on academia.edu.

Abstract by Yazdan Safaee, based on the German original.