Necho II

Lore & Background

Necho II was the son of Psammetichus I and his Great Royal Wife Mehtenweskhet. His royal name Wahem-Ib-Re means 'Carrying out the Heart (i.e., Wish) of Re.' Upon ascending the throne, he faced chaos from Cimmerian and Scythian raids that had helped the Babylonians shatter the Assyrian Empire. He attempted to aid the remnant Assyrian general Ashur-uballit II at Harran, but his initial force was too small and was forced to retreat west across the Euphrates. In spring 609 BC, Necho personally led a large army, mainly mercenaries, along the coast route Via Maris into Syria. At Megiddo he engaged and killed the Judean king Josiah. He then captured Kadesh on the Orontes, crossed the Euphrates (the first pharaoh to do so since Thutmose III), and joined Ashur-uballit to besiege Harran, but failed to capture it. On his return, he deposed Josiah's successor Jehoahaz and replaced him with Jehoiakim, taking Jehoahaz prisoner to Egypt. In his second campaign, Necho retook Kumukh after a four-month siege and executed the Babylonian garrison. However, in 605 BC, the Babylonian crown prince Nebuchadnezzar II decisively defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish, driving them from Syria. Necho was unable to recover lost territories, though he repelled a Babylonian attack in 601 BC and captured Gaza. He spent his remaining years forging alliances with Carians and Greeks.

Reader's Guide

Necho II's significance lies in his role as a major figure in the power struggles of the late 7th century BC, involving the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Judean kingdoms. His killing of Josiah and intervention in Judean succession had lasting biblical and historical resonance. His military campaigns, though ultimately unsuccessful against the rising Neo-Babylonian Empire, demonstrated Egypt's continued ambition to control Syria and trade routes. Necho's ambitious projects—the unfinished canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea (a precursor to the Suez Canal) and the creation of an Egyptian navy using Ionian Greek mercenaries—reflect a forward-looking, if ultimately thwarted, vision. The reported Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa, if true, would represent a remarkable feat of ancient exploration. Egyptologist Donald B. Redford described Necho as 'a man of action from the start, and endowed with an imagination perhaps beyond that of his contemporaries, [who] had the misfortune to foster the impression of being a failure.' His son Psammetichus II may have removed Necho's name from monuments, though some scholars dispute this.

Did You Know?

• Necho II was the first pharaoh to cross the Euphrates River since Thutmose III.
• According to Herodotus, Necho commissioned Phoenician sailors who circumnavigated Africa in three years, reporting the sun on their right—evidence they had crossed the Equator.
• Necho's unfinished canal from the Nile to the Red Sea was the earliest known precursor to the Suez Canal.
• He founded the city of Per-Temu Tjeku ('The House of Atum of Tjeku') at modern Tell el-Maskhuta, about 15 km west of Ismailia.
• Egyptologist Donald B. Redford called Necho 'a man of action from the start, and endowed with an imagination perhaps beyond that of his contemporaries.'

Military Ambitions and the Battle for the Levant

Necho II's reign was defined by two sweeping military campaigns aimed at reshaping the political map of the ancient Near East. In the spring of 609 BC, he personally led a large mercenary army along the coastal Via Maris route into Syria, backed by a Mediterranean fleet, to aid the crumbling Assyrian remnant under Ashur-uballit II. The campaign brought him to Megiddo, where he clashed with the Judean king Josiah and killed him. Pushing further, Necho captured Kadesh on the Orontes, joined forces with the Assyrian general, and crossed the Euphrates to besiege Harran—a feat no pharaoh had accomplished since Thutmose III. Yet the siege failed, Ashur-uballit vanished, and the Assyrian Empire fell to Babylon. His second campaign sought to halt Babylonian westward expansion, but in 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II delivered a crushing defeat at Carchemish, shattering Egyptian control from the Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt. Necho never recovered those territories, and by 601 BC he could barely defend his own eastern border.

The Canal, the Fleet, and the Circumnavigation

Beyond the battlefield, Necho II pursued infrastructure and maritime ventures that revealed a vision stretching far beyond Egypt's traditional borders. During his Syrian campaign, he initiated the cutting of a navigable waterway from the Pelusiac branch of the Nile to the Red Sea—the earliest known precursor to the Suez Canal—intended to open a direct trade link between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Though the project was never finished, he founded the settlement of Per-Temu Tjeku, meaning 'The House of Atum of Tjeku,' at what is now Tell el-Maskhuta, roughly fifteen kilometers west of modern Ismailia, to anchor the new waterway. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Necho also dispatched a fleet of Phoenician sailors from the Red Sea, and in three years they rounded the entire African continent and returned through the Strait of Gibraltar. Additionally, he assembled an Egyptian navy by recruiting displaced Ionian Greeks, an unprecedented step for a pharaoh whose predecessors had largely ignored naval power.

Kingmaker in Judah and the Fate of Josiah's Heir

Necho's intervention in Judean politics during his 609 BC campaign left a lasting mark on the Kingdom of Judah. At Megiddo, he engaged and killed King Josiah, the young monarch who had sought to oppose the Egyptian advance. After Josiah's death, the Judeans chose his son Jehoahaz as successor, but Necho refused to accept that choice. On his return march from Syria, he deposed the newly crowned Jehoahaz and installed Jehoiakim as the new king of Judah, effectively making the Judean throne a matter of Egyptian political convenience. Jehoahaz was taken as a prisoner to Egypt, where he spent the remainder of his days in captivity. This episode, recorded in both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, illustrates how Necho wielded military power not merely to conquer territory but to dictate dynastic succession in a vassal kingdom, asserting Egyptian suzerainty over Judah at a moment when the balance of power in the Levant was shifting dramatically.

A Visionary Misread as a Failure

The Egyptologist Donald B. Redford captured the paradox of Necho II's legacy in a single observation: he was "a man of action from the start, endowed with an imagination perhaps beyond that of his contemporaries," yet carried "the misfortune to foster the impression of being a failure." That assessment rings true when one surveys his reign. His canal project, his Phoenician circumnavigation, his recruitment of Ionian Greeks into a navy—each was a bold, forward-looking initiative that outpaced the political realities of his era. Yet his two great military campaigns ended in retreat and defeat, and the territories he seized in Syria were lost to Nebuchadnezzar's armies. Compounding the erasure, his son Psammetichus II may have removed Necho's name from monuments upon taking the throne, further dimming his historical presence. In the end, Necho stands as a ruler whose ambitions exceeded his era's capacity, remembered less for what he built than for what he could not hold.