The Tanite kings of the XXIst Dynasty rebuilt the temple of their capital, but did little else.
The Tanite line of kings generally had the overlordship of the high priests of Thebes; the descendants of Hrihor, however, sometimes by marriage with princesses of the other line, could assume cartouches and royal titles, and in some cases perhaps ruled the whole of Egypt.
The Tanite dynasty may have risen from a Libyan stock, though there is nothing to prove it; the XXIInd Dynasty are clearly from their names of foreign extraction, and their genealogy indicates distinctly a Libyan military origin in a family of rulers of Heracleopolis Magna, in Middle Egypt.
Sheshonk (Shishak) I., the founder of the dynasty, c. 950 B.C., seems to have fixed his residence at Bubastis in the Delta, and his son married the daughter of the last king of the Tanite dynasty.