That is what we hope to establish at this site.
Pharaoh So
Hoshea began to reign in Samaria in the twelfth year of Ahaz, king of Judah. When Tiglath-Pileser died, Hoshea made some moves towards greater independence. “Against him came up Shalmaneser [V] king of Assyria” (II Kings 17:3); Hoshea submitted and became a tribute-paying vassal. But in his sixth year, weary of the heavy oppression, Hoshea sought protection of the king of Egypt.
And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison.(1)
Who was pharaoh So, to whom the king of Israel gave allegiance? He was not identified by the historians: many efforts were made and no acceptable assumption made.
Since most of the eighth century before the present era Egypt was dominated by the kings of the Libyan Dynasty, and the time when Hoshea dispatched messengers to So, king of Egypt, was about -726, the simple solution is to identify one of the Shoshenks as the biblical So, king of Egypt. And further, since on the walls of the Amon temple at Karnak a bas-relief with Israeli cities depicted as tributaries to Shoshenk Hedjkheperre of the Libyan Dynasty is a well-known and much discussed archaeological relic, the identification of the pharaoh So should be simple.
Then why was not this identification made?
