Tefnakht II
Stephinates
A scarab attributed to a king Menibre[1] who, according to Kitchen, may have been Tefnakht II.Bologna, Museo Civico Archeologico, KS 2670.
King of Sais
Reign	695 – 688 BC
Predecessor	Ammeris? (as governor of Sais)
Successor	Nekauba
Royal titulary Praenomen Menibre orIribre(?) Nomen Tefnakht
Children	Nekauba,Necho I
Dynasty	Proto-Saite Dynasty

Tefnakht II (Ancient Greek:ΣτεφινάτηςStephinátēs,ΣτεφινάθιςStephináthis;Latin:Stephinates,Stephinathis) was anancient Egyptian ruler of the city ofSais during the early 7th century BC. He is recognized as an early member of the so-called "Proto-Saite Dynasty",^[2] which directly preceded the26th Dynasty of Egypt.

Tefnakht II is mainly known byManetho'sAegyptiaca, under the nameStephinates. Based on Manetho's work,Sextus Julius Africanus called Stephinates the founder of the 26th Dynasty while another historian,Eusebius, placed a certainAmmeris "the Nubian" just before him. In both cases, the two historians credited Stephinates with a 7-year-long reign.^[3]

In 1917,Flinders Petrie was the first to argue that "Stephinates" was probably anAncient Greek render of theEgyptian nameTefnakht, and first called this ruler "Tefnakht II" in order to distinguish him by the namesakeGreat Chief of the West who few decades earlier clashed againstpharaohPiye of theKushite25th Dynasty and later rose to kingship under the nameShepsesre Tefnakht (I), founding the short-lived Saite24th Dynasty.^[4]

Kenneth Kitchen hypothesized that Tefnakht II may have been a relative ofpharaohBakenranef – son and successor of Tefnakht I – who was probably killed byShebitqo and then replaced by a faithful governor, the aforementioned Ammeris. Thus, according to Kitchen, Tefnakht II effectively restored a Saite dynasty, and ruled from 695 to 688 BC.^[3] He was then succeeded by another relative calledNekhepsos in Greek, and identified with the EgyptianNekauba. It is possible that manyscarabs datable to this period, and bearing the otherwise unknownthrone namesMenibre andIribre, belongs indeed to Tefnakht II and Nekauba.^[4]

In 2011,Kim Ryholt made a case for Tefnakht II being the father of the later pharaohNecho I: according to a papyrus fromTebtunis, the latter was the son of a king named Tefnakht, with the most likely choice being Tefnakht II.^[5]

Since the initial claim by Petrie, there were scholars whom questioned the distinction between Tefnakht I and Tefnakht II. In 1956,Wolfgang Helck equated the two figures,^[6][4] a position later rejected by Karl-Heinz Priese, who stated that there was no compelling reason to identify Tefnakht II with Tefnakht I aside from the similarity of their names.^[7]
In more recent times, Oliver Perdu noticed close similarities in style, form and content between a newly discovered donation stela dating to Year 2 of Necho I, and a Year 8 donation stela of Shepsesre Tefnakht (I). Perdu argued that these two Saite rulers were more close contemporaries than usually believed, and suggested that Shepsesre Tefnakht is in fact Tefnakht II and not Tefnakht I, the former having lived just few years beforeNecho I while the latter, several decades before.^[8]
Perdu's arguments were put in discussion by Dan'el Kahn who note that hisepigraphic criteria here – such as the use of the tripartite wig, the slender figure of the king and the method through which the falcon-headed god keeps his head upright in stelas and temple wall reliefs contemporary with Tefnakht I's time – appear in use already in the early 25th Dynasty duringPiye's orShabaka's reign and even inShoshenq V's Year 38 donation stela of theChief of theMa Tefnakht (I), who was Piye's rival.^[9]

• 7th-century BC pharaohs
• Pharaohs of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt

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