Ruler
Necho II
King of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty
610 – 595 BCE
Regnal dates after Shaw (2000); they are more precise for this period than for earlier ones.
Biography
Herodotus credits him with digging a canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, and with sending Phoenician sailors to sail around Africa.
Key facts
Certainty: Debated
Herodotus reports that Necho sent Phoenician sailors who circled Africa in three years.
Scholarly note: No Egyptian evidence of the voyage survives. Some scholars think the detail of the sun "on the right", which Herodotus himself doubted, supports it; others doubt it happened.
- Herodotus “Histories, Book II (5th century BCE)”, IV.42
- Ian Shaw (ed.) (2000) “The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt” Oxford University Press