Helped by the unreliable vassals of the Assyrians in the Nile Delta region, Tantamani briefly regained Memphis in 663 BC, killing Necho I of Sais in the process.

[2] On learning of these events, Ashurbanipal aided by Necho's son, Psamtik I and his Carian mercenaries, returned to Egypt with a large army and comprehensively defeated the Kushites near Memphis.

The Kushites were permanently expelled within a decade of the fall of Thebes as none of Tantamani's successors would ever manage to retake territories north of Elephantine.

Durably weakened, Thebes peacefully submitted itself less than six years after the sack to a large fleet sent by Psamtik to control Upper Egypt as he freed himself from the Assyrian vassalage.

The Neo-Assyrian Empire was already extending its influence over the Levant at the same period, and in the spring of 720 BC Piye or perhaps Shebitku fought and lost a first battle against the Assyrians near Rafah.

Shebitku's successor Shabaka seized the occasion and return to the Levantine coast, where he was free to roam until c. 701 BC when Sennacherib was finally able to assemble an army and win over the Egyptians at Eltekeh.

[6] In March of 673 BC, Essarhadon sent a large military force to Egypt, possibly via the Wadi Tumilat but was defeated by the Egyptians under Pemu, then ruler of Heliopolis for the Kushites.

Esarhaddon returned two years later in the summer of 671 BC and after a number of battles, was able to take Memphis, wound Taharqa, capture his brother and his son Nes-Anhuret, the alleged heir to the throne.

[13] In 667 BC, Esarhaddon's heir Ashurbanipal decided to re-establish the Assyrian dominion over Egypt, invading the land in October of that year and going up to Thebes, where they defeated Taharqa while simultaneously quelling a rebellion in the Delta.

Tantamani then proceeded north and received the capitulation of some but not all Delta kinglets,[15] then expulsed the remaining Assyrian troops from Egypt while Necho's young son Psamtik managed to flee to Assyria via Palestine.

Together with Psamtik I's army, which comprised Carian mercenaries, they fought a pitched battle in north Memphis, close to the temple of Isis, between the Serapeum and Abusir.

The Assyrians took a large booty of gold, silver, precious stones, clothes, horses, fantastic animals, as well as two obelisks covered in electrum weighing 2,500 talents (c. 75.5 tons, or 166,500 lb).

[20] Concurrently or soon after the sack, the Kushite army withdrew from Egypt in large numbers, a momentous event that was still remembered some 200 years later and gave rise to Herodotus' story about 240,000 Egyptian deserters settling in Nubia.

[23][24] Tantamani's fate after the loss of Thebes is not entirely clear: he seems to have ruled for some time as king of Kush,[25] as suggested by a relief of him in Jebel Barkal.

Although Atlanersa and his successors styled themselves as Egyptian pharaohs, and some might have launched further attempts to regain power in the north, none of them succeeded in retaking Egypt.

With Thebes' influence and outreach deeply weakened, Psamtik sent a strong military fleet to the city in 656 BC and immediately received its submission.