The Thebaid, however, continued in a state of revolt against the Assyrian authority. Another Ethiopian king, whom the Assyrians call Urd-Aman, had succeeded Tirhakah, and was battling for the sovereignty of Egypt. Urd-Aman is usually identified with the Pharaoh Rud-Amon, whose name has been met with on two Egyptian monuments, but about whom nothing further is known. Some scholars, however, read the name Tand-Aman, and identify it with that of Tuatan-Amon or Tuant-Amon, whose royal cartouches are engraved by the side of those of Tirhakah in the temple of Ptah-Osiris at Karnak. An inscription found built into a wall at Luxor mentions his third year, and a large stêlê erected by him at Napata was discovered among the ruins of his capital in 1862, and is now in the Museum of Gizeh. On this he states that in the first year of his reign he was excited by a dream to invade the north. Thebes opened its gates to him, and after worshipping in the temple of Amon at Karnak, he marched to Memphis, which he captured after a slight resistance. Then he proceeded against the princes of the Delta, who, however, shut themselves up in their cities or else submitted to him.
One day Paqrur of Goshen appeared at Memphis to do him homage, much to the surprise and delight of the Ethiopian king. As Paqrur was the prince of Pi-Sopd or Goshen, who had been sent to Nineveh along with Necho, the date of Tuatan-Amon is pretty clear. How he came to quit Egypt, however, he does not vouchsafe to explain.
Whether Urd-Aman were Rud-Amon or Tuatan-Amon, he gave a good deal of trouble to the Assyrians. Thebes was securely in his hands, and from thence he marched upon Memphis. The Assyrian garrison and its allies were defeated in front of the city, which was then blockaded and taken after a long siege. Necho was captured and put to death, and Psammetikhos escaped the same fate only by flight into Syria. But Assyrian revenge did not tarry long. Assur-bani-pal determined to put an end to Egyptian revolt and Ethiopian invasion once for all. A large army was despatched to the Nile, which overthrew the forces of Rud-Amon in the Delta and pursued him as far as Thebes. Thence he fled to Kipkip in Ethiopia, and a terrible punishment was inflicted on the capital of southern Egypt. The whole of its inhabitants were led away into slavery. Its temples—at once the centres of disaffection and fortresses against attack—were half-demolished, its monuments and palaces were destroyed, and all its treasures, sacred and profane, were carried away. Among the spoil were two obelisks, more than seventy tons in weight, which were removed to Nineveh as trophies of victory. The injuries which Kambyses has been accused of inflicting on the ancient monuments of Thebes were really the work of the Assyrians.