НАШАТА БИБЛИОТЕКА: Tausret. Forgotten Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt Edited by RICHARD H. WILKINSON

 Д-Р ИЛИЯНА БЕНИНА   Д-Р НИКОЛА БЕНИН

Beyond the Shadows: The Story of Queen Tausret. 

​While Hatshepsut and Cleopatra usually dominate discussions of female pharaohs, another remarkable woman ruled Egypt at the end of the 19th Dynasty: Tausret.

​Navigating a period of political turmoil, Tausret rose from Great Royal Wife to regent, ultimately ruling in her own right as Pharaoh of Egypt.

​Edited by Richard H. Wilkinson, Tausret: Forgotten Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt gathers research from top scholars to explore her life, her tomb (KV14) in the Valley of the Kings, and her sudden disappearance from historical records.

Отвъд сенките: Историята на царица Таусрет.

Макар че в дискусиите за жени фараони обикновено доминират имената на Хатшепсут и Клеопатра, в края на XIX династия Египет е управляван от още една забележителна жена – Таусрет.

Преминавайки през период на политически сътресения, Таусрет извървява пътя от „Велика царска съпруга“ до регент, за да застане накрая начело на страната като пълноправен фараон на Египет.

Книгата „Таусрет: Забравената царица и фараон на Египет“ (под редакцията на Ричард Х. Уилкинсън) обединява проучвания на водещи учени, посветени на нейния живот, гробницата ѝ (KV14) в Долината на царете и внезапното ѝ изчезване от историческите летописи.

Table of Contents

Contributors

Chronology of the New Kingdom

Introduction

The Queen Who Would Be King

Richard H. Wilkinson, University of Arizona

1. Foremost of Women: The Female Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt

Joyce Tyldesley, Manchester University

2. Female Horus: The Life and Reign of Tausret

Gae Callender, Macquarie University

Photographs

3. Forgotten Treasures: Tausret as Seen in Her Monuments

Catharine H. Roehrig, Metropolitan Museum of Art

4. A Queen in a Valley of Kings: The Tomb of Tausret

Hartwig Altenmüller, Hamburg University

5. The “Temple of Millions of Years” of Tausret

Richard H. Wilkinson, University of Arizona

Afterword

Richard H. Wilkinson and Catharine H. Roehrig

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Chronology of the New Kingdom

This chronology is based partly on that given in Ian Shaw, ed. The

Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Monarchs are identified by their cartouche names: first the ruler’s birth

name and then, parenthetically, the throne name. Dates given are

approximate in some cases, and all are subject to ongoing study of the

chronology of New Kingdom Egypt.

Dynasty 18

Ahmose (Nebpehtyra) 1550–1525

Amenhotep I (Djeserkara) 1525–1504

Thutmose I (Aakheperkara) 1504–1492

Thutmose II (Aakheperenra) 1492–1479

Thutmose III (Menkheperra) 1479–1425

Hatshepsut (Maatkara) 1473–1458

Amenhotep II (Aakheperura) 1427–1400

Thutmose IV (Menkheperura) 1400–1390

Amenhotep III (Nebmaatra) 1390–1352

Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten (Neferkheperura Waenra) 1352–1336

Smenkhkara (Ankhkheperura) 1338–1336

Tutankhamen (Nebkheperura) 1336–1327

Aye (Kheperkheperura) 1327–1323

Horemheb (Djeserkheperura) 1323–1295

Dynasty 19

Ramesses I (Menpehtyra) 1295–1294

Sety I (Menmaatra) 1294–1279

Ramesses II (Usermaatra Setepenra) 1279–1213

Merenptah (Baenra Hotephermaat) 1213–1203

Amenmesse (Menmira) 1203–1200?

Sety II (Userkheperura Setepenra) 1200–1194

Siptah (Akhenra Setepenra) 1194–1188

Tausret (Sitra Merytamen) 1188–1186?

Dynasty 20

Sethnakht (Userkhaura Meryamen) 1186–1184?

Ramesses III (Usermaatra Meryamen) 1184–1153

Ramesses IV (Hekamaatra Setepenamen) 1153–1147

Ramesses V (Usermaatra Sekheperenra) 1147–1143

Ramesses VI (Nebmaatra Meryamen) 1143–1136

Ramesses VII (Usermaatra Setepenra Merytamen) 1136–1129

Ramesses VIII (Usermaatra Akhenamen) 1129–1126

Ramesses IX (Neferkara Setepenra) 1126–1108

Ramesses X (Khepermaatra Setepenra) 1108–1099

Ramesses XI (Menmaatra Setepenptah) 1099–1069

1

Foremost of Women: The Female Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt

JOYCE TYLDESLEY

To appreciate the life and reign of Tausret, and to set her in her proper

social and historical context, it is necessary to understand the unique role

allocated to the principal royal women—the queen consorts and queen

mothers—of ancient Egypt. This chapter considers the historical and

archaeological evidence for their lives, paying particular attention to the

select group of women who could claim the title “female pharaoh.”

The Women of Ancient Egypt

Abundant natural resources made Egypt a very wealthy country. Yet

with no efficient health care and no official welfare program, life was both

brief and insecure for many, and the family offered the only reliable

protection against uncertainties. Marriage created an economic unit to

support both husband and wife during their lifetime; their children would, it

was hoped, support them in death by making the necessary funerary

offerings. Everyone therefore expected to marry, and girls were raised to

become good wives and mothers.1

Egyptian law treated men and women of equivalent social status as

equals. Women could own, buy, sell, and inherit property. They could bring

cases before the law courts and could be punished by them. And they could

act as deputies for their husbands in business matters. This was unusual by

the standards of the Classical world, but less so in comparison to

neighboring Near Eastern societies.2

 Women, and mothers in particular,

were respected, but it would be naive to assume that husbands did not

assume the right to control their households. The Old Kingdom scribe

Ptahhotep offered his schoolboy readers some good advice in this respect:

“Do not argue with your wife in court. Keep her from power—restrain her.

… In this way you will make her stay in your home.”3

Married couples led very different lives, performing complementary

but opposite roles. While the “Mistress of the House” assumed

responsibility for domestic matters, her husband worked outside the home.

This allocation of duties is reflected in the artistic convention that presented

women as pale beings beside their more weather-beaten, darker-skinned

husbands. Poorer women, and unmarried women, might also work outside

the home, but few if any women (and, indeed, few men) received the

education that would allow a professional career. As their traditional duties

of child care, cooking, and laundry have had little impact on the

archaeological record, these illiterate women tend to be invisible to us. This

bias in evidence is made worse by a shortage of domestic sites, as most of

Egypt’s mud-brick palaces, cities, and villages have been lost. Only a few,

highly atypical, women have been able to leave evidence of their lives.

Included among these are the queens who ruled Egypt as kings.

From the very beginning of the dynastic age in approximately 3100

BCE, to its end in 30 BCE, Egypt was ruled by a king, or pharaoh.4

 Pharaoh

was the one Egyptian who could serve as a link between the people and

their pantheon; the only living person who could make the regular offerings

that the gods craved. In consequence, to pharaoh fell the responsibility of

maintaining maat: the ideal state of affairs within Egypt.5

 This was an

onerous and awesome burden. Pharaoh was required to officiate in the

temples, to rule in the law courts, and to fight off any enemies—either

foreigners or criminals—who might disrupt the status quo. Thus, and only

thus, would maat be preserved. With maat in place, the gods would be

happy and the land would prosper; with maat absent, chaos would flood the

land and Egypt would fail. This overwhelming need to preserve maat was

responsible for the innate conservatism of the ancient Egyptians. Any

deviation from tradition—and, in particular, any threat to the monarchy—

was seen as a potential threat to maat.

6

It was therefore vital that there was always a pharaoh on the Egyptian

throne. The ideal pharaoh would be the son of the previous king. He would

be youthful yet mature, healthy, brave, and wise; essentially, he would be

the continuation of all successful pharaohs who had gone before. However,

it was not always possible to meet this ideal. Occasionally a pharaoh came

to the throne as an old man, or as an infant or a commoner. Some pharaohs

were ill or infirm (although they did their best to hide this in their official

propaganda).

7

 And although the overwhelming majority were male, a very

few were female. None of that mattered. Once pharaoh had undergone the

correct coronation rituals he, or she, acquired a veneer of divinity that

would allow him, or her, to function as a proper king. This partial divinity

would remain in place until death transformed pharaoh into a fully divine

being.

Technically, then, a woman might become pharaoh.8

 But that would

happen only if there was no more suitable male candidate for the throne

and, given that the royal harem usually produced multiple sons, that was a

relatively rare event. Just three female pharaohs—the 12th-Dynasty

Sobekneferu, 18th-Dynasty Hatshepsut, and 19th-Dynasty Tausret—are

universally accepted as having ruled pre-Ptolemaic Egypt in their own right,

although various authorities have proposed several others. These three

reigns were undertaken at very different times and in very different

circumstances. Nevertheless, it is possible to draw some broad parallels. All

three women were of royal birth, each either the daughter or granddaughter

of a king, and each apparently served as queen-consort before becoming

pharaoh. None had a living son to succeed her.

Each male pharaoh needed a wife by his side. Egypt’s queen-consort

provided the feminine element of the semi-divine monarchy, supporting the

king and performing female-based religious duties.9

 But every pharaoh also

had a mother who, by having given birth to a quasi-divine being, was

herself touched with divinity. While the king and queen created a

partnership strong enough to confound chaos, the king and his mother

formed a second, unbreakable partnership. At the same time, the dowagerqueen and the queen-consort were linked by their shared duty to protect

pharaoh. Their relative importance alternated as the dynastic age

progressed, with first the king’s wife, and then the king’s mother, holding

the most important role in the royal family.

Egypt’s Queens

In the English language a “king” is always a male ruler, while a

“queen” can be either the wife or widow of a king, or a monarch ruling in

her own right. But in ancient Egypt, where royal titles invariably stressed

relationships to the pharaoh, the queen’s title Hmt nswt, which was used

from the 4th Dynasty onward, literally meant “king’s wife.” So an Egyptian

queen was by definition a woman who was, or had been, married to a king.

Women who ruled Egypt in their own right classed themselves as female

pharaohs, or kings.

As pharaohs maintained increasingly large harems, there were many,

many king’s wives; it is difficult to give precise numbers, but it is likely that

the three hundred or so pharaohs generated several thousand women

entitled to use the title queen. The most important of these were the queenconsorts: the queens at the heart of the royal family whose sons were

expected to inherit the throne. These women were distinguished from lesser

queens by an increasingly elaborate series of crowns and titles. They had a

recognized political and religious role, were represented in official writings

and artwork, and were buried in splendid tombs. From the Middle Kingdom

onward, they wrote their names in cartouches. Eventually they would

become the next “King’s Mother.” They might even rule Egypt,

temporarily, on behalf of an absent husband or an infant son.

In some periods, many queen-consorts were the full- or half-sister of

the king. To a people unaware of hereditary diseases, these unions brought

several practical benefits. They ensured that the queen was well prepared

for her role and that she was loyal to her husband rather than her birth

family. They reduced the number of potential claimants to the throne by

restricting the number of royal grandchildren, and they provided a link with

the gods who had enjoyed incestuous marriages. However, brother-sister

marriages were by no means compulsory.

10

The king’s lesser wives spent much of their lives in harem palaces—

communities built to house the king’s female dependents plus their children

and servants. These harem queens were by no means of equal status. Some

were the daughters of Egyptian kings, some were foreign princesses sent by

their fathers to make diplomatic marriages, and some were women of

relatively humble birth.

Queens of the Early Dynastic Period (Dynasties 1

and 2, c. 3000–2686 BCE)

We know little of Egypt’s first queens beyond their names, which are

often compounded with that of the ancient creator Neith. A far from passive

goddess, Neith was a hunter and a warrior whose prowess with the bow was

reflected in her emblem of crossed bows or crossed arrows.11

 Neithhotep

has been identified as the wife of the first pharaoh, Narmer, and therefore as

Egypt’s first queen. She bore the titles “Consort of the Two Ladies” and

“Foremost of Women,” and occasionally wrote her name in a serekh (the

rectangular box representing the royal palace that was invariably drawn

around the names of the earliest pharaohs) topped with the crossed arrows

of Neith.12 This assumption of a pharaoh’s protocol suggests that

Neithhotep may have ruled Egypt temporarily on behalf of her son Aha.

This is a situation that we will encounter time and time again: when an

infant inherits the throne, it is his mother who acts on his behalf until he is

old enough to assume his duties. But as the queen’s temporary “reign” falls

entirely within that of her son, it may prove impossible for modern

historians to detect.

While the pharaohs of the 1st Dynasty were interred in the royal

cemetery at Abydos, their consorts were buried elsewhere. Just one consort

was accorded the honor of burial among the kings. Meritneith, consort of

Djet, mother of Den and (probable) daughter of Djer, was interred in Tomb

Y.

13 Meritneith occasionally uses the serekh and this, combined with the

fact that she was probably included on a broken section of the Palermo

Stone (a record of the kings of Dynasties 1–5), suggests that she too ruled

on behalf of her son. We may therefore regard her splendid tomb, set among

the tombs of her fellow rulers, as a reward for her reign.14

There were, however, some lesser queens buried beside the 1stDynasty kings. Each royal tomb was surrounded by a series of satellite

graves whose shared roof suggests that they were provided for subjects or

relatives who were expected, maybe even forced, to die when pharaoh

died.15 The earlier tombs had large numbers of these subsidiary graves—

Djer had over 300—but the tradition gradually dwindled away and is not

found in the 2nd Dynasty. The dead were buried in short wooden coffins,

and their names and a few titles were preserved on small stelae carved by

the royal workshop. While some of these stelae are unreadable, it is clear

that the vast majority belonged to women, and it seems likely that they

represent pharaoh’s closest courtiers, including his harem wives.16

Queens of the Old Kingdom (Dynasties 3–8, c.

2686–2125 BCE)

The pyramid-building pharaohs of the Old Kingdom considered

themselves to be both the living Horus and the son of the solar god Re.

From the 4th Dynasty onward their consorts and mothers were equated with

Hathor, a solar goddess who had a double link with the Horus king as she

could be either the wife of the adult Horus or the protective mother-cow

who nourished the infant Horus and, by extension, suckled and protected all

of Egypt’s pharaohs. A series of triads recovered from the Giza mortuary

temple of Menkaure show the king and Hathor standing with various local

deities: Hathor invariably wears a sheath dress and a headdress of cow

horns and a solar disk. A contemporary dyad of Menkaure and an unnamed

woman, conventionally identified as his consort Kharmerernebty II but

possibly his mother, Kharmerernebty I, shows the queen looking nearly

identical to Hathor but lacking the goddess’s diagnostic headdress.17

Goddesses had always worn distinguishing crowns. Now queens, too,

were starting to develop their own regalia. First to appear was the vulture

crown, a headdress that resembled a bird draped over the wearer’s head,

with the body forming a cap, the wings hanging at the sides of the face, and

the vulture’s head and neck rising from the forehead. This was originally

the headdress worn by Nekhbet, vulture goddess of southern Egypt and, in

some mythologies, mother of the king. Other goddesses subsequently

adopted it, while Wadjet, cobra goddess of northern Egypt, replaced the

bird’s head with a uraeus (rearing cobra). This modified vulture headdress

would be worn by consorts from the 6th Dynasty onward, emphasizing the

link both between the queen and motherhood (vultures and snakes being

considered good mothers) and between the queen and the uraeus-wearing

pharaoh. The simple vulture headdress, too, would become a standard part

of the queen’s regalia, but during the 4th Dynasty it may have been reserved

for the dowager-queen.

The increasing use of stone throughout the Old Kingdom allows us to

see that queens were often depicted at a much smaller scale than their

husbands. In Egyptian art, where size always mattered, this was a reflection

of the consort’s (and, indeed, the wife’s) status relative to that of the

husband who commissioned the image. The first miniature queen is the 3rdDynasty Hetephernebty, who appears on a fragment of a smashed stone

shrine standing beside the leg of her gigantic husband, Djoser.

18 This

difference in size was not inevitable: the Menkaure dyad already discussed

shows the king and queen at a similar scale. Nor need queens always appear

with a husband: the so-called Galarza tomb at Giza has yielded a series of

statues including a colossal Kharmerernebty II.19

Although we have most of the burial equipment of Hetepheres (Figure

1.1, see insert), mother of the 4th-Dynasty pharaoh Khufu, we know little of

her life.20 It is not until the early 5th Dynasty that we find our first

politically prominent queen. Khentkawes I is the owner of an extensive,

two-stepped pyramid-mastaba tomb at Giza21 The titles carved on the

doorway to her mortuary temple include an ambiguous phrase that can be

translated as either “Mother of Two Kings of Upper and Lower Egypt,” or

“King of Upper and Lower Egypt and Mother of the King of Upper and

Lower Egypt.” Initially Egyptologists accepted the first interpretation,

believing that Khentkawes had given birth to two kings, Sahure and

Neferirkare, the second and third kings of the 5th Dynasty. However,

Miroslav Verner has recently suggested that an image carved on

Khentkawes’ doorjamb shows her sitting on a throne, wearing a false beard

and uraeus and carrying a scepter. This image is, unfortunately, faint and

unclear. Khentkawes’ name is never found in a cartouche, but if Verner is

correct, it would seem that she too served as a temporary monarch.22

The entirely fictional Papyrus Westcar tells the story of the triplet sons

of Re, born to the lady Redjedet.23 The babies are addressed by the midwife

Isis: “Do not be so strong in your mother’s womb, you whose name means

Strong” (a pun on the name Userkaf); “do not kick in your mother’s womb,

you whose name means Kicker” (Sahure); “do not be dark in your mother’s

womb, you whose name means Dark” (Neferirkare Kakai). This is far from

accurate history, but it does link Redjedet (a corruption of Khentkawes?)

with the first three kings of the 5th Dynasty: Userkaf, Sahure, and Nyuserre.

Userkaf, founder of the 5th Dynasty, is a man of unknown but presumably

royal origins and it seems likely that he was married to Khentkawes I. As

Userkaf reigned for just eight years, it is possible that his heir, Sahure,

would have needed his mother’s guidance. However, the situation becomes

more complicated when we consider the evidence from the Abusir pyramid

complex of Khentkawes II, consort to Neferirkare.24 Here, included among

entirely conventional images, we see Khentkawes wearing a uraeus and

using the same ambiguous title “Mother of Two Kings of Upper and Lower

Egypt” or “King of Upper and Lower Egypt and Mother of the King of

Upper and Lower Egypt.” Although Khentkawes I and II may be the same

woman, it is generally accepted that they are separate, identically named

queens. Khentkawes I seems to have ruled Egypt on behalf of at least one

son. Whether Khentkawes II also ruled on behalf of a son or was simply the

mother of two kings (Neferefre and Nyuserre) is not obvious.

Herodotus tells us that Nitocris, last queen of the 6th Dynasty,

succeeded her murdered brother to the throne.25 Determined to avenge him,

she built an underground banqueting chamber. Having invited her brother’s

assassins to a feast, she opened a conduit to the river. When all the

murderers had drowned, Nitocris committed suicide rather than explain her

actions to her people. This dramatic, and highly un-Egyptian, story is

unlikely to be true. Nitocris has left neither monument nor tomb, and

although the 19th-Dynasty Turin Canon allocates the otherwise unknown

“Neitaqerti” a reign of two years, one month, and one day, it seems

probable that “Neitaqerti” is a misre-corded male name.

Queens of the Middle Kingdom (Dynasties 11–13,

c. 2055–1650 BCE)

While the Middle Kingdom pharaohs reestablished the traditions of

their Old Kingdom predecessors, adopting their propaganda, regalia, and

burial customs, their consorts, denied the prominence accorded to the Old

Kingdom queens, had little impact on state affairs and all but vanished from

the royal monuments. This phenomenon was not restricted to the royal

family, and it is clear that relatively few elite women bore priestly titles.26

Our knowledge of the Middle Kingdom queens is therefore largely

restricted to their names, their tombs, and their surviving grave goods.

During the 12th Dynasty we find the introduction of the title “King’s Great

Wife,” a title that helps us to distinguish the consort from lesser queens.27

The tradition of female reticence came to an abrupt end during the

reign of the 12th-Dynasty pharaoh Amenemhat III. Amenemhat was a

dynamic and prosperous monarch, yet his death heralded the collapse of his

dynasty. Evidence from his Hawara pyramid suggests that his failure to

produce a satisfactory male heir may have been a contributing factor to this

collapse. Included in his burial chamber was a wooden coffin for “the

King’s Daughter Ptahnofru.” It seems that Ptahnofru, having died

unexpectedly, had to be temporarily interred in her father’s tomb to allow

the builders sufficient time to complete her pyramid.28 Ptahnofru’s use of a

cartouche in her later inscriptions suggests that she had been her father’s

intended successor. Instead, with Ptahnofru already dead, Amenemhat IV

briefly succeeded Amenemhat III.

Amenemhat IV was in turn succeeded as pharaoh by his half-sister and

probable consort Sobekneferu. Sobekneferu never explains her elevation to

the throne but she does emphasize her hereditary right to rule by

consistently associating herself with her father Amenemhat III: she may

even have been the first to deify Amenemhat III in the Faiyum. The fact

that later historians were happy to incorporate her in their king lists

indicates that she was always regarded as a legitimate pharaoh.

Three badly damaged statues of Sobekneferu have been recovered

from the Delta site of Avaris; we may assume that these originated in the

Faiyum where Sobekneferu ruled the whole of Egypt from the (now lost)

city of Idj-Tawi. The most interesting of these pieces is headless and

limbless. Carved from red quartzite, it shows the queen’s female body

dressed in an awkward combination of queen’s and king’s clothing: a

female shift dress with a royal kilt tied over the top.29 On her head

Sobekneferu wears a king’s nemes head cloth; her titles are inscribed on her

belt. An equally damaged schist statue shows her wearing a king’s ritual

cloak.30 Without in any way denying her gender—she almost invariably

uses feminine titles—Sobekneferu is here allowing herself to be depicted in

the traditional regalia that will reinforce her role as pharaoh. In other

images she is entirely female in appearance, but she assumes a male pose to

perform the ritual of trampling Egypt’s enemies.

The Turin Canon allows Sobekneferu a reign of three years, ten

months, and twenty-four days. Her pyramid has never been identified.

Sobekneferu’s Names as Ruler

Horus name: Meryt-Re

Nebty name: Sat-Sekhem Nebet-Tawy

Golden Horus name: Djedet-Khaw

Prenomen/King of Upper and Lower Egypt: Ka-Sobek-Re

Nomen: Sobek-Nofru

Horus name: Beloved of Re

Nebty name: Powerful Daughter, Mistress of the Two Lands.

Golden Horus name: Rising in Stability

Prenomen/King of Upper and Lower Egypt: Sobek is the soul of Re

Nomen: Sobekneferu [the Beauties of Sobek]

Queens of the Earlier 18th Dynasty (c. 1550–1390

BCE)

As the Theban pharaohs of the late 17th Dynasty started the long fight

to reunite their land, their consorts were required to take supportive action

in the absence of their husbands and sons. An increased emphasis on, and

respect for, the individuality of each consort allowed their deeds to be

recorded, and this allows us to recognize different personalities in a way

that has been impossible before.31

Tetisheri, consort of Sekenenre Taa I, was a formidable queen. She

would be remembered with such respect by her grandson Ahmose, founder

of the 18th Dynasty, that he built an elaborate cenotaph for her in the

Abydos cemetery. Even greater was the respect that Ahmose felt for his

mother Ahhotep I, consort of Seqenenre Taa II and daughter of Tetisheri.

Ahhotep had raised Ahmose and his sister-consort Ahmose-Nefertari

following the death of his father in battle. On a stela erected at Karnak,

Ahmose boasted that his mother performed the rites, guarded Egypt, and

cared for Egypt’s soldiers.32 Ahhotep’s successful defense of her land

(Thebes, rather than the whole of Egypt) explains why her coffin included,

along with the expected jewelry, an inscribed ceremonial axe, a gold dagger

and sheath, and three golden flies: the “medals” awarded to successful

soldiers.33

The New Kingdom consorts maintained the high status inherited from

their late 17th-Dynasty predecessors, adopting increasing numbers of

secular and religious titles and an expanded range of crowns and

headdresses that now included the double uraeus. Hathor and Isis wore

similar crowns so that, at a time when many pharaohs were hinting at their

own earthly divinity, their queens and their goddesses appeared almost

interchangeable. This increase in status coincided with an expansion in the

size of the royal harem. The New Kingdom kings—now the richest and

most powerful rulers in the Mediterranean world—married many, many

times. While foreign princesses traveled to Egypt to marry pharaoh (several

princesses marrying each king), there was no reciprocal exchange of brides.

From the late 17th Dynasty until the mid-19th we have no evidence of any

Egyptian princess marrying anyone other than an Egyptian king.

Ahmose-Nefertari proved a worthy successor to her mother. Alongside

her standard royal titles “King’s Daughter,” “King’s Sister,” and “King’s

Great Wife”—she became “Second Priest of Amun” and was

simultaneously both “Divine Adoratrice” and “God’s Wife of Amun.” The

income generated from these lucrative positions allowed her to make

generous offerings to the gods, and her name has been recorded in temples

at Abydos, Thebes, and Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai. She is also recorded, in

association with her husband, in the limestone quarries and alabaster

quarries. When Ahmose died, Ahmose-Nefertari served as regent for their

young son, Amenhotep I. Later, following the death of his childless sisterwife Meritamen, she acted as Amenhotep’s consort. Dying during the reign

of Thutmose I, she was buried in the Dra Abu el-Naga cemetery on the

Theban west bank. But that was not the end of her story. Amenhotep I and

Ahmose-Nefertari had become so closely linked that both were deified as

patrons of the workmen’s village of Deir el-Medina. Here AhmoseNefertari was worshipped as a goddess of resurrection until the end of the

New Kingdom.

Egypt’s next pharaoh was the commoner-born Thutmose I. His

consort, Ahmose, used the title “King’s Sister” but was apparently not a

king’s daughter. She bore her husband two daughters but no son. Ahmose

remained in the background during her husband’s reign and the subsequent

reign of her stepson, Thutmose II, only to be given a prominent role in the

divine birth story of her daughter, the female pharaoh Hatshepsut.

Following the death of Thutmose I, Hatshepsut became consort and

“God’s Wife of Amun” to her half brother, Thutmose II. She bore a

daughter, Neferure, but not a son, and so, when Thutmose II died, the

throne passed to the infant Thutmose III, a son born to the harem queen Isis.

As the new king needed an experienced queen to help him reign,

Hatshepsut stepped forward and assumed the title “Mistress of the Two

Lands.” Initially this was a conventional regency, although Hatshepsut’s

commissioning of a pair of obelisks for the Karnak temple of Amun hints at

her unusual ambition. Then, some time before her stepson’s Regnal Year 7,

Hatshepsut was crowned pharaoh. In a throwback to Middle Kingdom

tradition, she ruled as the dominant king alongside the now junior

Thutmose III.34

Hatshepsut now needed to present herself as a traditional pharaoh. We

don’t know how she dressed in real life, but her earlier images and statuary

show her either as a conventional woman or as a woman wearing king’s

clothing, while her later art shows her as a stereotypical king with a male

body dressed in male clothing. Her monumental texts are less consistent,

and she alternates between the feminine and masculine forms of her titulary

(Figure 1.2, see insert).

Like many modern politicians, Hatshepsut neither explains nor

apologizes for her actions. We may speculate that she acted because Egypt

was threatened by a situation requiring a fully adult pharaoh, but there is no

evidence of any political, military, or religious crisis at this time. It may

simply be that she felt, as the daughter, sister, and wife of a pharaoh, that

her contribution to maintaining the monarchy should be recognized. There

is no indication that anyone opposed her elevation, and we must assume

that she had the support of the elite who effectively ran the priesthood, civil

service, and army. Nor is there any evidence that anyone—not even

Thutmose III—ever attempted to remove her from power. Once she had

completed the coronation rituals, she remained pharaoh until her death. She

does, however, offer us some justification. She is entitled to rule because

she is the true heir of Thutmose I and so, like Sobekneferu before her, she

consistently links herself to her powerful and widely revered father. At the

same time she is the semi-divine “Daughter of Amun.” And he, via an

oracle, has proclaimed his daughter pharaoh. The tale of Hatshepsut’s

divine conception and birth is told in words and pictures on the walls of her

Theban temple.