Amanikhabale
| Amanikhabale | |
|---|---|
Damaged portrait of the king buried in Beg. N 2, possibly Amanikhabale | |
King of Kush | |
| Reign | First half of the first century CE (?) |
| Predecessor | Nawidemak |
| Successor | Natakamani and Amanitore (?) |
| Burial | Pyramid Beg. N 2 at Meroë (?) |
Amanikhabale (also transliterated Astabarqaman) was a King of Kush who probably ruled in the first half of the 1st century CE. Amanikhabale is known from inscriptions from Kawa, Basa, and Naqa, as well as a broken stela from Meroë. The quality and scale of the monuments on which Amanikhabale's inscriptions have been found, as well as their geographical distribution, indicates that he had a prosperous reign.
George Andrew Reisner suggested that Amanikhabale was buried in Pyramid 2 at the North cemetery (Beg. N 2) at Meroe (Bagrawiyah), largely supported by scholars since. Amanikhabale's name is known from a fragment of a table found in Beg. N 3, which can be fitted together with fragments in Beg. N 2 and Beg. N 4. The table designates his mother as the queen regnant Nawidemak. This further supports Beg. N 2 as his burial since it has close palaeographic similarities with Nawidemak's tomb, Bar. 6.