Anysis was a blind man from the city of Anysis (possibly Anytis in the Delta) who lost his kingdom to the Ethiopian (Nubian) king Sabachos (Shabaka). He hid on an island of Elbo for fifty years while the Ethiopians ruled Egypt and then took his throne back. Herodotus claims that the Nubians left because Sabacos had a dream in which he killed a number of Egyptian priests. As the Nubians were devout supporters of Amun, he chose to leave the country rather than risk this impious act.
According to Herodotus, Anysis was a good king, who did not believe in excessive punishment. If one of his subjects committed a crime he was made to work on the embankments (which protected the city from the rising waters of the Nile and formed irrigation channels).
It is likely that he was Tefnakht, a Saite king of the twenty-fourth dynasty during the Third Intermediate Period. Lower Egypt at that time was a disorganised bunch of city states ruled by local chieftains, one of whom was Tefnakht. He organised a coalition of the northern princes to repel the Nubian Piyi (whose Egyptian name was Piankhi) not Sabacos (Piyi´s successor). When Piyi marched north, Tefnakht hid in the marshes and attempted to broker a peace treaty. Piyi returned to Napata (in Nubia) and ruled from there. Tefnakht and three other princes became governors of their territories on behalf of the Nubians. Sabacos (Shabaka) reunited Upper and Lower Egypt, after defeating the local kings, (including Tefnakht´s successor, Wahkare Bakenrenef of Sais, known to Manetho as Boccoris). The Nubian rule lasted sixty years. It ended when Tanutamun (a nephew of Shabaka) was driven from the country by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, who shocked the ancient world by sacking the city of Thebes.
