[Editor’s note: Brian Alm has been kind enough to submit another guest article to Em Hotep, for which we are very appreciative. Please note that all hypertext links are inserted by the editor for navigational and search engine optimization and may lead to links which do no represent Mr. Alm’s views or opinions. The captions for the photos and illustrations are likewise statements by the editor, so if there are mistakes, please do not blame Brian! Enjoy!]

 

Introduction

Ancient Egypt was highly unusual in its acceptance of women in roles that elsewhere would have been the sole province of men — at the domestic level, managing the household and directing servants, running home-based businesses such as weaving and pottery, even entering into legal contracts and serving as ferry pilots; and at the royal level, governing as regents and even ruling as female kings. This commentary is focused on the most interesting among those women in high places who wielded power and influence, some of whom rose to ultimate command of Egypt and directed its destiny.

Women of common station are left out of this discussion. Unfortunately and inevitably, less is known about the common people of either gender than about the elite and royals, but it is clear that the housewives of Egypt had remarkable levels of responsibility and authority, as well as legal rights, compared to the rest of the ancient world. One woman is known to have charged her husband thirty—percent interest on a loan from her own holdings, and that was perfectly legal.

Try to imagine another ancient culture in which women could hold, and did hold, positions of power and prestige, and commoners who had actual legal rights, the same as men. (For a thorough look at the domestic life and rights of women, I recommend especially The Life of Meresamun, Emily Teeter and Janet Johnson, eds., Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.)

Indeed, much has been published on all of this, and in this limited piece I hope to encourage all those interested to explore the books listed in References, most particularly those by Joyce Tyldesley and Toby Wilkinson, which inform this study throughout. My own contribution is simply the compilation of these women by category, defined and collected in one place instead of scattered about amidst all the rest of history, which proved to be a useful clarification in my mini-course on this topic in 2015.

Although my focus here is on the elite and royal women of influence, it must be noted that all Egyptians, men and women alike, had a fundamental obligation to support the king, whose ultimate responsibility was to preserve the order of the universe. No one wanted to be the weak link in that grand cosmology.

So even for commoners, the idea of “influence,” at least on the domestic level, must have informed the self-esteem of the ancient Egyptian woman. The term nebet per, “mistress of the house,” meant more than simply “housewife.” The Egyptian woman had important and much valued responsibilities: she managed the household servants and finances, negotiated deals, entered into contracts, owned property, and on the home front did her part in the maintenance of order.

The New Kingdom scribe Ani is known primarily for his Book of the Dead papyrus, but in another document, the Instructions of Ani, he admonishes: “Repay your mother for all her care. Give her as much bread as she needs, and carry her as she carried you, for you were a heavy burden to her. After you were born, she still carried you on her neck. For three years she suckled you and kept you clean.” Also Ani cautions: “Do not control your wife in your house…. let your eye observe in silence. Then you will recognize her skill.” This kindly respect for women in an ancient culture is all the more remarkable when we consider, for instance, that women in the United States were not allowed to vote until 1920.

But let us escalate the matter and return to the subject at hand, the royal women of power and position who served as kings’ wives, regents, co-rulers or sole sovereigns, or in whatever way influenced Egyptian history.

Despite the ubiquitous mention of “queens,” the Egyptians had no such word. Royal women’s titles were expressed in terms of their relationship to the king: King’s Mother (mut nesu);King’s Great Wife (hemet nesu weret), the senior queen; and King’s Wife (hemet nesu), of whom there could be several or many, most or all of them resident in the harem.

Conventional terminology was not prepared for the possibility of a female monarch, but when circumstances required, accommodations had to be made — cultural and religious fundamentals demanded it. A crucial concept of order in Egypt was duality — the binary complement, two halves of a whole. Therefore the king’s consort was a necessary complement to kingship. Even when a woman was king, she might appoint another woman to assume the role of King’s Great Wife in order to preserve that necessary duality. It was not about sexual union, but about the proper fulfillment of roles in maintaining the balance of order. (See Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt, p. 42)

Does that mean everything was always perfect? Hardly. The ideal is inevitably vulnerable to collision with reality. So it was with ancient Egypt. And as for reality, Egypt had it all — murder mysteries, palace intrigues, conspiracies, sexual liaisons, incest, mayhem, shrewd political maneuvering, bloody battles, intricate international diplomacy and life-or-death power plays. And in all of that, some of the key players were women.

A prime example from the dark side is the palace coup d’etat launched by Tiy, a secondary wife of Ramesses III in the Twentieth Dynasty, probably in a futile attempt to secure the succession for her son, Pentaweret. The so-called Harem Conspiracy was not successful; even though Ramesses probably did die as a result of it, the plot was discovered, the succession of Ramesses IV went forward, and the conspirators paid dearly for their impertinence, all but two of them with their lives. But the interesting thing is that a woman did it and managed to get forty people in the palace, including men, even the chamberlain and head of the treasury, to join her. And what’s more, it wasn’t the first time: as far back as the Sixth Dynasty, a coup was launched against Pepi I by one of his wives, Weret-Imtes. That too was a failure, but it happened.

It must be noted that the old “heiress theory,” which held that royal succession was through the female line, is false, but that there was a shift temporarily in the Thirteenth Dynasty from royal father-son succession to a succession of brothers, sometimes on a rotating plan (called circular succession) in which powerful families took turns ruling, and it appears likely that wives and mothers played a central role in deciding who would be next. (See Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens, p. 22.)

Now let’s have a look at some of these powerful and influential royal women. For clarity, I’ve sorted them into six categories.

 

 

Six Categories

1: Full-titled, bona fide kings: Sobekneferu (Twelfth Dynasty, Middle Kingdom), Hatshepsut (Eighteenth Dynasty, New Kingdom), Tawoseret (Nineteenth Dynasty, New Kingdom) and Cleopatra VII (Ptolemaic Period, regarded by some as the Thirty Third Dynasty).

2: Almost surely king, but unproven: Nefertiti (Eighteenth Dynasty, New Kingdom); the problem is basically whether Nefertiti ruled on her own as Neferneferuaten after Akhenaten’s death, and that problem is resolved largely by personal choice and opinion. Of course it gets more complicated. Was Smenkhkara, so commonly referred to as “the shadowy” or “mysterious” or “ephemeral” Smenkhkara, actually Nefertiti? Was this interim ruler actually Nefertiti’s daughter, Meritaten?

It is clear that there was at least one king between Akhenaten and Tutankhamun, and to many including myself it seems likely that there were two, Nefertiti-Neferneferuaten, who co-ruled with Akhenaten and then briefly on her own, and Smenkhkara, who was probably a younger brother of Akhenaten. But the uncertainty of all this places Nefertiti in the next category also.

3: Possible–probable: Merneith (First Dynasty, Early Dynastic Period), Khentkawes I (Fifth Dynasty, Old Kingdom), Neithiqerti (Sixth Dynasty, Old Kingdom) — possibly even Neithihotep (wife of Narmer, First Dynasty), but that may be too speculative to count — and Nefertiti, as mentioned above.

It remains uncertain whether these women ruled as full-fledged kings or simply as regents but with kingly authority. A case for kingship may be imagined, but the hope of certainty has long since vanished in the depths of time. Indeed, it is not entirely certain that Neithiqerti was a woman, or even that she existed, but certain enough to include her.

We might label this category “The Jury’s Still Out.”

So thus far we have four women who were kings, one who almost certainly was, and three more who may have been: a total of eight. Now we come to some who might as well have been.

4: Regents: Many King’s Great Wives served as regents for their minor sons, assuming sole rule as de facto monarchs, some of whom were especially conspicuous in this interim role, going back to the Old Kingdom and perhaps even earlier — again, time obscures our vision.

Several of the most powerful and prominent regents were bunched together in the Eighteenth Dynasty: Ahhotep, who ruled for her son Ahmose; Ahmose-Nefertari, for Amenhotep I; and Hatshepsut, for Thutmose III. We might wonder what the Eighteenth Dynasty would have been like without the presence early on of Ahhotep, and Tetisheri before her; indeed, we might wonder whether the institution of the God’s Wife of Amun (Category 6) would ever have risen to the position it did in the Third Intermediate Period without the driving force of Ahhotep, Ahmose-Nefertari and Hatshepsut in the Eighteenth Dynasty.

At least two of these regents, Hatshepsut and Tawoseret (Nineteenth Dynasty), New Kingdom), enjoyed the royal role so much that they made themselves kings. That may have been in Sobekneferu’s mind also, back in the Twelfth Dynasty, because she too served as both regent and king.

We might add those in Category 3 to this group, should scholarship ever provide the jury with evidence sufficient to render a verdict.

5: Neither king nor regent, but very, very influential: including Hetepheres I, wife of Seneferu (Fourth Dynasty, Old Kingdom); Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III (Eighteenth Dynasty, New Kingdom); and at the end of the Seventeenth Dynasty, leading into the Eighteenth, Tetisheri, the wife of Senakhtenra Tao I and mother of both Seqenenra Tao II, who began the revolt to overthrow the Hyksos at the end of the Second Intermediate Period, and his sister-wife Ahhotep, who arguably was instrumental in completing it.

6: God’s Wife of Amun: The sixth category defies easy definition, being neither king nor regent, but extremely influential and moreover, official, unlike those in Category 5. The concept, purpose, operation and stewardship of this office changed over time, which makes defining it all the more difficult. Its roots were in the early eighteenth Dynasty but its fulfillment as a political force, fused to religion, comes much later, in the Third Intermediate Period, when its celibate matrons assumed responsibility for maintaining order in Egypt, consorting with god, and ordaining their own successors — the very and fundamental functions of a pharaoh.

“Celibate matrons”? Yes — not at the outset, but in the Twentieth Dynasty and the Third Intermediate Period, certainly, they practiced nun-like monogamy, married to Amun.

Theoretically, the chief duty of the God’s Wife of Amun was to arouse the god, who would reciprocate by keeping Egypt fertile and maintaining the cyclical eternity of the universe (neheh) forever (djet-ta). At least that was the official story. In practicality, the office ultimately was a means for the pharaoh to keep a lid on the Amun priesthood in Thebes and the political milieu in general by linking church and state. With his own daughter in control of the priesthood down south, the king could devote more attention to matters up north.

Stability, Control and Order

Indeed, we can say that all of these roles — in whatever category we place them — were about stability, control and ultimately order in Egypt, without which there could be no order in the universe (ma’at).

In diametrical opposition to that principle of order and control is the Ptolemaic Period, which virtually defines disorder. There were both female regents and sole rulers, albeit temporary and opportunistic failures — Cleopatra II, Berenice III and Berenice IV come to mind. With the exception of Cleopatra VII, none was equipped for or worthy of the role, but in fairness, neither were the Ptolemaic men.

Suffice it to say, the women of this strange time defy placement in the categories that apply to the rest of Egyptian history, which were based on a regard for order; whereas Ptolemaic Egypt always seemed to be teetering on chaos.

The unusual Ptolemaic Period should not distract us from the fact that during the 2,800 years before, there were many women of power and influence who deserve our close attention. The following are in chronological, not categorical, order.

 

The Women

Merneith/Meretneith

Merneith/Meretneith was the daughter of Djer, the wife of Djet, and sometime during the First Dynasty (3000-2890) the regent for her young son Den. It is clear that she ruled, but it is not clear that she ruled as king. In any case, a precedent was established: women could rule, at least as regents, and at least for the time being, or as long as necessary. (It is possible that Neithhotep, wife of Narmer, pre-3000, may have done so too.) Later on, during the reign of Nynetjer (about 2850), it was officially decided that women could occupy the throne, but the decree was a formality — Merneith had already done that, so it was a matter of policy catching up with reality.

For a long time, scholars thought Merneith was a male, but then they noticed that her name actually had the grammatical feminine ending t (Meretneith); despite that, traditionally she is still referred to as Merneith. (See Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens, p. 33)

 

Hetepheres I

Hetepheres I, the wife of Seneferu, first king of the Fourth Dynasty, was the mother of Khufu, who built a nice pyramid for her right next to his own on the Giza plateau. Hetepheres’ tomb was found mostly intact, minus her body, but full of precious furnishings and personal items — lavishly equipped, one of the finest collections of grave goods ever found in Egypt.

But for our present purposes, the most interesting of all were the inscriptions, which in addition to the usual, obligatory and grandiose epithets was this one: “Director of the Ruler, Whose Every Utterance is Done for Her.” Difficult though it may be to imagine of the builder of the Great Pyramid, “It seems,” says Toby Wilkinson, “that Khufu took orders from only one person — his mother” (Rise and Fall, p. 73).

 

 

 

Khentkawes I

The actual royal role of Khentkawes I, Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 B.C.), is confusing, but sufficient enough to include her as a woman of power and influence. The confusing thing is that an ambiguous inscription on her mastaba tomb could be read either as “Mother of Two Kings” or as “King of Upper and Lower Egypt and Mother of the King.” She was apparently the wife of Userkaf and so maybe she was simply the mother of Sahura and Neferirkara Kakai, but, as Joyce Tyldesley notes in Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt (pp. 52-54), the door jamb shows her “sitting on the throne, wearing a false beard and uraeus and carrying a scepter.” The single uraeus was worn only by kings at this time; it wasn’t worn by Great Wives until the Middle Kingdom, 500 years later. The “blatant assumption of kingly regalia,” as she says, leads Tyldesley to believe that Khentkawes ruled Egypt in some capacity.

The size and grandeur of her mastaba tomb on the Giza Plateau signal royal status; some have even thought that it was originally intended to be a fourth Giza pyramid. She emphasized her close relationship to the sun god Ra, in this time of the Sun Kings, and the crown prince Sahura was too young to rule on his own when his father Userkaf died after only eight years on the throne, so it seems likely that she did rule as regent. It is not known that she declared herself king and was crowned, but neither is it known that she didn’t.

A papyrus from this dynasty tells the story of the divine births of Userkaf, her husband; Sahura, her son; and Nyuserra, probably her grandson. So Khentkawes is presented as a king’s mother impregnated by god. This idea of divine birth would become very important for Hatshepsut a thousand years later, and others after her.

 

Ankhenesmeryra and Neithiqerti

(a.k.a. Ankhesenpepi II) served as regent for Pepi II, who assumed the throne as a child and managed to total up ninety-four years as king. He married his sister and half-sister, and also his niece, and a couple of other senior queens — no telling how many minor queens.

During the second half of his reign the Old Kingdom was quivering to a halt. The nomarchs were grabbing power in their provinces and creating fiefdoms, central government was weakening, and Pepi couldn’t keep it under control. He was succeeded by Merenra II, briefly, and then (probably) by Merenra’s sister, Neithiqerti, in about 2175.

It is not entirely certain that Neithiqerti was a woman, or that she even existed, but it is far more likely that she was real and just happened to be there when the Old Kingdom came down. Nevertheless there is speculation that Neithiqerti was invented as an explanation for the demise of the Old Kingdom, thus removing that blemish from Pepi II by pasting it on a woman. That seems unlikely; at ninety-four, Pepi II was fully capable of losing control of Egypt on his own.

 

Sobekneferu

Sobekneferu (Twelfth Dynasty, Middle Kingdom) was the daughter of Amenemhat III, who was succeeded by Amenemhat IV, who probably was his son, although scholars differ on that; some think he was a distant relative. Amenemhat IV ruled for perhaps ten years. There is reason to believe that Sobekneferu — his wife and probable sister, or half-sister — ruled as regent for at least part of his reign. When Amenemhat IV died, Sobekneferu assumed full kingship — Egypt’s first (documented) female king — and ruled for just four years (sometime between 1782 and1760), concluding the Twelfth Dynasty with more whimper than roar. (See Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens, p. 74-75.)

Amenemhat IV didn’t amount to much, so Sobekneferu sought to distance herself from him and link herself to her father, Amenemhat III; and just to be sure, she deified her father as god of the Faiyum so she, now as the daughter of a god, could legitimately be both king and female. She used male titles and had her statues sculpted distinctly kingly — wearing a male kilt and a nemes headcloth, and trampling Egypt’s foes like a man.

It would be easy to lose one’s sense of identity, given the complications generated by the clash of gender and duty, as we will see again 300 years later on when Hatshepsut faces the same predicament.

However, the Twelfth Dynasty was too weak by this point to continue and the government fragmented; in the following Thirteenth Dynasty there were twenty-one weak kings for about sixty-three years, then six more kings for about twenty years, and so it went — at least fifty-five kings in 143 years. That becomes important as we try to understand the mentality and morale of the times, and what happens in the late Seventeenth Dynasty and the early Eighteenth — in fact, throughout the Eighteenth Dynasty.

It is ironic that Sobekneferu, a woman, was blamed for the collapse of the Twelfth Dynasty, just as Neithiqerti, a woman, was blamed for the collapse of the Old Kingdom, because when we get to the end of the Seventeenth Dynasty and the dawn of the New Kingdom, it is women who take charge and steer Egypt toward Empire.

 

Tetisheri

A special note is long overdue for Tetisheri (Seventeenth Dynasty, Second Intermediate Period). She was neither ruler nor regent, but she was the first in a string of extremely powerful women and it could be argued that she prepared the way for those who followed, starting with her daughter Ahhotep and granddaughter Ahmose-Nefertari, and culminating in the most eminent women of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Hatshepsut and Nefertiti.

Was Tetisheri the force behind this flood of influential women in the Eighteenth Dynasty? Was she the spark plug? The matriarch? The example for her son and daughter and granddaughter? We might even wonder if Ankhesenamun would have been bold enough to write so brazenly to the king of the Hittites as she did, more than 200 years later, without the precedent of these strong women. Tetisheri is one of the many characters in the grand Egyptian drama who would be wonderful sources to resurrect and interview.

Apparently it was a close family and the superiority of its women was not lost on Tetisheri’s son Seqenenra Tao II, who married all three of his sisters, the main one of whom was Ahhotep.

 

Ahhotep

Ah, Ahhotep, who ruled as regent for about ten years — with the assistance of her mother, Tetisheri — until her son Ahmose was sixteen. Both her brother-husband Seqenenra Tao II and (probable) elder son Kamose had fallen in battle, so she stepped in. That may be putting it mildly: for her perseverance and valor in battle against the Hyksos, she was awarded enough Golden Flies to make a necklace, which she took to her grave along with a dagger and an axe — not the usual trappings of a reticent matron. And on a dedication stela erected by her son Ahmose she was credited as the one who “has pacified Upper Egypt and expelled her rebels” (Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt, p. 43).

Of course, in retrospect we know there were women who ruled Egypt much earlier, but now, as Tyldesley says, “For the first time we have written proof that the queen regent could wield real authority” (Chronicle of the Queens, p. 84).

Dare we propose that Ahhotep may have been the real founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty? In any case, she set a lot in motion and lived up to the expectations of her birth name, Ahhotep — “the moon (Ah) is pleased.” Even more telling was her nickname, by which she was commonly known at the time: “Ruru” — ru, the sphinx-like lion. Incidentally, that is the glyph that was appropriated 1,200 years later to serve for the letter “L” in order to write “Ptolemy,” but for the Ptolemys any pretension to the leonine character of the Eighteenth Dynasty women would be wishful thinking.

Ahhotep named four of her children Ahmose (Egyptian Ahmes, “born of the Moon”), regardless of gender. So let’s proceed to Ahmose’s sister-wife Ahmose-Nefertari.

 

Ahmose-Nefertari

In the family tradition, Ahmose married his sister, in fact both of them, Ahmose-Nefertari and Ahmose-Nebta, but Ahmose-Nefertari was his chief wife, and in addition to the fact that she assumed the regency for her son Amenhotep I at Ahmose’s death, just as her forebears had done, she is particularly important for two other reasons.

First (and in light of future history, foremost), she was given (by King Ahmose) the title God’s Wife of Amun; more on that momentarily.

Second, as regent (and later, ceremonial consort) for her son Amenhotep I, she was instrumental in bringing a commoner soldier into the royal succession when Amenhotep’s sister-wife Meritamun died childless. This soldier was Thutmose I, “the first king in three generations to come to the throne as an adult” (Wilkinson, Rise and Fall, p. 203) — i.e., without a regent mother to rule for him; moreover, the first of the bloodline that included all but two of the kings in the rest of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Most significantly, this set a precedent for elevating a military commoner to royal rank and kingship — a model that would prove useful at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty and beyond.

The God’s Wife of Amun development had even longer-term ramifications, and certainly greater effect in regard to the position of women in the history of Egypt.

In the Middle Kingdom there had been non-royal God’s Wives — of Min and Ptah as well as Amun — but now in the Eighteenth Dynasty, with the ascension of Amun as the preeminent national god and the burgeoning power of the Amun priesthood, Ahmose specifically related the office to Amun, reserved it for royal women, endowed it with self-sustaining resources and landholdings, and established the title God’s Wife of Amun in the royal titulary.

Eventually — in the Third Intermediate Period — this office would become the most powerful political position in Egypt. (See Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens, p. 88ff). We will explore the God’s Wife of Amun in greater depth later on.

For any who keep track of such things, Ahmose-Nefertari was the first to wear on her crown the double uraeus (Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens, p. 205).

The Brave New World

Tetisheri, Ahhotep and now Ahmose-Nefertari — three generations of very powerful and influential women in a row. In the First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom, women were virtually absent from the scene, except for Sobekneferu, whose reign was short and essentially sounded the death knell for the Middle Kingdom. But now, for most of seventy years, Egypt was governed, essentially, by women.

Let’s put all this together. With the defeat of the Hyksos, in which Ahhotep played a significant role, we have the restoration of Egypt’s dominion and order through military might. We have the growing, nationwide cult of Amun and the ascendency of Thebes as a result of that. We have a new dynasty under a new king, along with a new and powerful King’s Great Wife who holds a new title and position of power — God’s Wife of Amun — with unprecedented wealth, influence and independence to wield her financial power as she wishes. Also we have the establishment of a political and religious link between the King’s Wife and the priesthood of Amun, and now we have the ascension of a commoner, a military man, to the throne. Incidentally, we also have a standing army, with new weaponry including the chariot, the composite bow and the khepesh scimitar. We have all the makings of Empire. This Brave New World is the New Kingdom.

What kind of power would women wield next? Who would follow this trio — Tetisheri, Ahhotep, Ahmose-Nefertari? Who could? Answer: Hatshepsut.

Hatshepsut

She was not the first female king, but the greatest ever to rule Egypt (even including Cleopatra VII), and one of the most fascinating women in Egyptian history — world history, for that matter. Enough has been written about Hatshepsut to make her so familiar to anyone who has read about Egypt that I need not belabor it.

So, very briefly then, Thutmose I was the father of both Hatshepsut and her husband Thutmose II. Thutmose II and Hatshepsut had a daughter, Neferura, and Thutmose had a son by a spare wife from the harem, Iset, who would become Thutmose III — eventually. Thutmose II died in about regnal year thirteen (c.1479), when the boy was too young to rule, so his stepmother-aunt Hatshepsut took over as regent, but after about six years of that she decided she liked being in charge, and so she had herself crowned as king, in 1473.

Now we come to the most fascinating part of the story. She needed to legitimize her kingship, so she said the god Amun had revealed to her via an oracle that he had proclaimed her his daughter and ruler of Egypt. She explained that the god crept up on her mother while she was sleeping, arousing her with his divine fragrance. Oh, Amun had taken the form of her father, Thutmose I, so it was all okay. Amun told the queen that she would bear him a daughter and that she should name her Khenemetamun Hatshepsut: She Whom Amun Embraces, Foremost of Noble Women.

Incidentally, the usefulness of this justification was not lost on Amenhotep III three generations later, when he too wished to explain his divine origin, and told how his mother, Mutemwia, was deliciously overcome by Amun, disguised as her husband Thutmose IV, who then sealed the matter with the annunciation: “Amenhotep Ruler of Uaset is the name of this child that I have placed in your womb. He shall be a potent king in this entire land. He shall rule the Two Lands like Ra forever.” (See Wilkinson, Rise and Fall, pp. 208-13.)

So there we have it, a divine birth: mortal woman visited by god — and a fine model for the Christians 1,500 years later.

Hatshepsut says that when she was born, Amun cradled her in his arms and called her “daughter of my loins, Maatkara, you are the king who takes the throne of Horus.” Interesting! She says she got her throne name (prenomen) Maatkara at birth! That’s supposed to be only upon coronation. Then at her coronation she said: “I am king upon the order of my father from whom I came forth” — the father being Amun, that is — and on her obelisk at Karnak she testified: “I act under [Amun’s] order. It is he who guides me.” That makes her the legitimate king and both her husband Thutmose II and nephew-stepson Thutmose III usurpers — a convenient fiction, and indisputable — she was king, after all, and once enthroned, a king was a king.

It must be noted that all this time Thutmose III also was king — a king, that is, not the king. Hatshepsut let him take part in royal affairs and appearances, but as for sole rule, Thutmose would simply have to wait.

Well, to top it all off, she had herself pictured in male clothing, wearing a false beard, and she assumed the traditional kingly poses, trampling foes and whatnot, as Sobekneferu had 300 years before. She even had herself portrayed in colossal statues as Osiris, standing proud across the front of her cult temple.

Before, when Hatshepsut was King’s Great Wife, she was also God’s Wife of Amun. Now, as king, she needed a female to fulfill the feminine aspect of monarchy and complete the male-female duality required of kingship and ma’at, so she named her daughter Neferura to the post, and Neferura assumed the titles Mistress of the Two Lands (Nebet-tawy) and God’s Wife of Amun.

It would not be a stretch to imagine that Thutmose III, waiting for his turn to rule on his own, might have had some concern that down the road this God’s Wife of Amun Neferura could be a problem — especially after all those women at the outset of the dynasty, and now Hatshepsut, Neferura’s indomitable mother.

Hatshepsut got right down to business, restoring and building temples all over Egypt — emphasizing Amun most especially, since he was now Egypt’s chief national god and the basis of her claim to the throne.

Because Egyptian gods were not motile, they needed temples for residence throughout the land. That worked to Hatshepsut’s advantage: a highly visible and broadly based public profile for the promotion of her claim of legitimacy despite the presence of a living bloodline successor to Thutmose II. And, as Lyndon Johnson said, politics is always local; all this construction created jobs.

She built a processional avenue from Karnak temple to Luxor, which included the Precinct of Mut, Amun’s wife, and established a new public festival: Opet. Festivals were always popular, but this one was a propaganda engine with real horsepower. Once a year Amun traveled south, on the route that later became the Avenue of the Sphinxes, from Karnak to Luxor, and spent a month in residence there, restoring himself and the kingship by mating with the king’s mother — all symbolically, of course, but real enough to the Egyptian mind for the builders to honor practicality and include a bed chamber and bed of stone at the extreme end of Luxor temple. Thus refreshed, Amun would return to Karnak via the Nile, having reaffirmed the divine birth of his daughter the king and her right to rule.

There was also the Beautiful Festival of the Valley, which likewise linked Karnak to Luxor, but it also featured a trip across the Nile to the ancient and sacred precinct of Hathor in Deir el-Bahari, right where Hatshepsut happened to have built her cult temple. Amun was resident there in the Holy of Holies (djeser-djeseru, Greek naos, Latin sanctum sanctorum), and side chapels enshrined Hathor and Anubis. She cited this massive monument conspicuously beside the temple of Mentuhotep, who 600 years earlier had rescued Egypt from the dismal First Intermediate Period. Hatshepsut had a flair for appearances.

One other interesting aspect of these festivals featuring Amun is that his statue, along with those of his wife Mut and son Khonsu, were carried in a procession that included stopping at various spots, the Stations of the Gods, so the common people could ask the oracle questions. But moreover these processions, festivals and oracular counselings gave the people an opportunity to witness Amun’s support of the monarch via Amun himself.

Hatshepsut also did some military campaigns, but she is best known for diplomacy and stability, and, in regnal year 9, the expedition to Punt, which extended Egypt’s reach into exotic new territory and brought to Egypt some unique treasures and curiosities — fascinating in their own right, to be sure, but moreover tangible tools of propaganda. Here was a king who could project Egypt’s dominion to far-off places across the globe, increase the country’s wealth, and do it all without war — and a king who, incidentally, happened to be a woman.

She ruled for about twenty years on her own, often with the young Thutmose III at her side, at least for appearances. He was always acknowledged as co-ruler and his regnal years kept running as if he had sole rule — but there was no question about who was the king of Egypt. There apparently was no bad blood between them; it was simply the reality of Egyptian monarchy — a king is king and order (ma’at) is paramount. So Thutmose III grew up like this, and eventually, after Hatshepsut died, in his mid-twenties (1458), assumed sole rule at last.

It was not until twenty years later that Thutmose III had her images, monuments and declarations broken up or chiseled off — focused on only those references to her as a king. It was nothing personal, it was not a full-fledged damnatio memoriae, but simply a rejection of the idea of a female king, and a precaution against letting any more of that sort of thing happen in Egypt.

Oh, but there was more to it than male chauvinism. Why wait twenty years? Because it was not until then that Thutmose had to deal with practical politics — succession was at stake. He needed to make sure that his son Amenhotep would inherit the throne as Amenhotep II, and not Hatshepsut’s daughter Neferura. Thutmose didn’t want to take any chances. Hatshepsut had stamped her legitimacy with magical and enduring words. Therefore the words had to be erased.

 

Mutemwia

Mutemwia (Eighteenth Dynasty, New Kingdom), a minor wife of Thutmose IV, was the mother of Amenhotep III, who became king at the age of twelve. The more senior wives who outranked her failed to provide Thutmose with an heir. That presented Amenhotep with a problem — justifying his kingly status when his mother was so low born — but also a ready solution: do as Hatshepsut had done. So again the perfumed and irresistible Amun stepped in to help by assuming the guise of the king’s father, Thutmose IV this time, and mating with his mother. Presto, Amenhotep was not the son of just a third-string wife after all, but actually the son of god.

There were more regents than we are considering in this paper, so it might be asked why I am including Mutemwia here and not others. Three reasons stand out: one, the interesting recycling of the Hatshepsut-Amun divine-birth story for political purposes; two, the lofty honor in which Amenhotep III held his mother, obvious in the colossal statues that anchored his cult temple — the so-called Colossi of Memnon — in which she and his Great Royal Wife Tiye share equal status at the throne of the king; and three, the likelihood that Mutemwia was instrumental in bringing the Akhmim clan into the royal court, which leads us to Tiye.

 

Tiye

Tiye too was a commoner — but oh, what a commoner she was. It’s hard to picture anyone reminding her of that. She was shrewd, smart and tough; a wise diplomat and trusted royal counselor, respected and feared by all. Take a look at her images and you get the measure of Tiye: severe, superior and self-sure. She had her sculptor, Iuty, capture her just as she wished to be seen and remembered. “Larger than life,” Toby Wilkinson says of her (Lives, pp. 178-81).

Tiye came from the powerful Akhmim clan, a veritable cat’s cradle of interconnectedness and clout. She was the daughter of Yuya and Tjuiu, Amenhotep III’s most beloved courtiers. Yuya was the Prophet of Min and Tjuiu was in charge of the Harem of Min, two very important offices. It has been the common belief, which I share, that her brother was Ay, the vizier and a future king, although it must be noted that some question that for lack of evidence. (It was long thought that Ay was the father of Nefertiti, but more recent study casts that in doubt.) Another brother, Anen, was Second Prophet of Amun — another lofty position. Ay’s daughter Mutnedjmet married Horemheb, general and later on, Ay’s successor as king. Nakhtmin, a general under Horemheb, was possibly a son of Ay who did not outlive him and therefore did not succeed, or possibly Ay’s brother. Suffice it to say, the Akhmim clan was welded to the court.

Mutemwia, wife of Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III’s mother, was in all probability Tiye’s sister, and it now seems likely that she engineered the marriage of Tiye and Amenhotep, which unleashed an avalanche of history.

On the secular level, Tiye played a prominent role in diplomatic relations, helping Amenhotep III run the country, no doubt driven and supported by her politically astute Akhmim roots. Later on, during the reign of her son Akhenaten, the Mitanni king Tushratta — apparently in a fit of frustration over Akhenaten’s disinterested manner in matters of state — wrote to him and urged him to consult with his mother, Tiye.

She was the first King’s Great Wife to include the cow horns and sun disk in her crown, and she carried a sistrum, thus associating herself with Hathor. There’s much more to that than the optics. Amenhotep III had become convinced of his own divinity, and also had developed a fascination with the old pre-Amun, solar religion, which emphasized Ra.

Whatever divinity he imagined for himself went also for Tiye, who, in filling the role of Hathor, linked herself to Ra. In fact, Tiye did not even take the title God’s Wife of Amun, suggesting to Joyce Tyldesley that already by this time the royal family may have been downplaying Amun (see Chronicle of the Queens, p. 115ff). The Aten cult was starting up even in Thutmose IV’s reign, and perhaps in some rudimentary way as far back as Hatshepsut, and was now gaining traction.

But Amenhotep may not have been entirely motivated by theology. The Amun priesthood was becoming a little too powerful; focusing on the sun god may well have been more strategic than sacred. In any case, he passed on to his second son and successor, Amenhotep IV, soon to become Akhenaten, his passion for self-deification and the roots of a new sun-oriented theology, plus his inclinations to political expediency. (Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens, pp. 119-20.)

There’s some serious stuff going on here, not least the advancing deification of living royalty.

 

Nefertiti-Neferneferuaten

Akhenaten co-ruled with his father Amenhotep III for some years — scholars differ on how long — and on his own, having renamed himself Akhenaten upon decreeing a new, monotheistic religion centered on himself and his wife (and probable sister) Nefertiti as the only direct connections to the deified sun disk, Aten, and in doing so, tossed out thousands of years of time-hallowed religious tradition.

This turbulent interlude, the Amarna period, left an imprint on history much larger than anyone would expect of a brief run of only about twelve years. Egypt had always been about order — order in Egypt as a sine qua non of order in the universe, ma’at. Also Egypt had always accommodated a host of deities and beliefs without competition or conflict. Now all that was countermanded by Akhenaten’s heretical reform and royal edicts.

It was long believed that Nefertiti was the daughter of Ay, whose wife also was named Tiy, but now it seems reasonably clear that Nefertiti and Akhenaten were full brother and sister, the offspring of Amenhotep III and King’s Great Wife Tiye.

Her birth name Nefertiti (“a Beautiful Woman Has Come”) was expanded to Neferneferuaten (“Beautiful are the Beauties of the Aten”) when her husband-brother Akhenaten instituted his Aten-based monotheism.

It must be noted that there is debate on who this “Neferneferuaten” was — Nefertiti or Smenkhkara? Some think Nefertiti ruled as a co-regent with Akhenaten and possibly for a short time on her own after his death; others think “Neferneferuaten” was actually Smenkhkara, who was either the son or brother of Akhenaten — or maybe even a woman. I for one side with those who regard Smenkhkara as Akhenaten’s younger brother, who followed Nefertiti-Neferneferuaten and preceded Tutankhamun.

But to give the other camp the benefit of a hearing, I will concede that the case for claiming that Nefertiti and Smenkhkara were the same person may seem compelling. Both Nefertiti and Smenkhkara were known by the same prenomen, Ankheperura. Nefertiti, during her co-regency with Akhenaten, had her daughter Meritaten step in to serve as Great King’s Wife, since there had to be a consort to maintain the duality, gender notwithstanding, and then Smenkhkara employed the same consort. Also Nefertiti oddly disappears just as Smenkhkara — the “ephemeral” and “mysterious” Smenkhara — appears. Still, I am not convinced.

Understanding the actual succession is complicated by the fact that subsequent kings and scribes sought to eliminate from the kings’ lists everyone between Amenhotep III and Horemheb, in defiance of the monotheistic heresy of Akhenaten. That removes the reigns of five monarchs from the record, along with some vital information about it all — Akhenaten, Nefertiti-Neferneferuaten, Smenkhkara, Tutankhamun and Ay. Three were certainly bona fide Atenists; little is known about Smenkhkara; but reform did start under Tut. Nevertheless, all were branded.

The Aten rituals required both male and female agents to complete the duality: the received Egyptian concept of complementary principles of creation and order were retained in the new faith. Now the male-female complements were the royal couple themselves. Akhenaten envisioned himself and his wife as Shu and Tefnut, the original principles of air and moisture, in a divine triad with the Aten deity, the new religion’s commandeered transformation of Ra. Akhenaten and Nefertiti are depicted as the only direct recipients of life from the rays of the sun; they themselves were to be worshiped as the two earthly links between humankind and the Aten.

Altars were strewn around the temple courtyard so Akhenaten could commune with the sun. Nefertiti, too, is shown conducting worship and offering prayers directly to the Aten, on her own, in the role of the king/high priest. Never before was a woman so empowered.

In that capacity she was acting as a male and therefore had to have a feminine complement, so her daughter Meritaten filled the vacancy. It had nothing to do with gender superiority, everything to do with the formulaic preservation of order (ma’at) through duality.

Akhenaten was focused so intently on his new faith and the eminence of Nefertiti that on his sarcophagus he replaced the usual four tutelary goddesses of age-old Egyptian tradition with statues of Nefertiti. (See Wilkinson, Lives, p. 196ff, and Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens, pp. 130-32.)

The six daughters of Nefertiti and Akhenaten appear in artwork of the royal family, but no sons are shown. That doesn’t actually mean anything — sons are rarely shown in royal family portraits, to avoid any implied contract or premature jockeying for succession. However, the omission may have delayed discovery of Tutankhamun’s parentage. Traditionally it has been held that he was the son of Akhenaten and a secondary queen named Kiya. But now DNA evidence and genealogical analysis indicate that it is more likely that Nefertiti was mother of Tutankhamun as well as Ankhesenamun, his full sister and wife, nee Ankhesenpaaten in honor of her father’s god.

Thanks in large part to later kings’ determination to expunge from the record all information about Amarna, it may never be possible for all scholars to agree on a definitive understanding of the Amarna court — the exact names and precise reigns, co-regencies, parentage and offspring.

Without the benefit of firm evidence, we all put together a scenario that we find most comfortable and believe to be a plausible sequence of events and a cast of key characters. The longer we think about our favored version of history the more we believe it’s right. That may be good for our peace of mind but if ever firm facts emerge we may all be in for a surprise.

Pending that day, here is how I choose to understand it:

• Akhenaten and Nefertiti had six daughters, one of whom was Ankhesenamun (born Ankhesenpaaten), and one or two sons, one of whom was Tutankhamun. There may have been another son, Smenkhkara, but it seems more likely that Smenkhkara was a younger brother of Akhenaten, therefore Tut’s uncle.
• Akhenaten made Nefertiti co-regent toward the end of his reign and added Neferneferuaten to her name.
• Akhenaten died; Nefertiti ruled for a year or so as Nefertiti-Neferneferuaten, with the prenomen Ankhkheperura.
• nNefertiti-Nefernefruaten died and was succeeded by Smenkhkara, who ruled briefly, perhaps as a usurper because Tut was in line for succession but he was a child. It is possible that adding “Ankhkheperura” to his name may have been an attempt to legitimize himself.
• Smenkhkara died (or vanished) and Tutankhamun took the throne, at about age eight or a little older, and married Ankhesenpaaten, who was at least three years older than he was, and perhaps as many as six. During the restoration of Amun that began during Tut’s reign, her name was changed to Ankhesenamun.
• Tutankhamun fathered two daughters, both of whom died, one in utero at five months’ gestation, one full-term but stillborn. Their mother was not Ankhesenamun but a minor wife who may be the woman buried in KV21, known as KV21a, who appears to have been crippled. The father was clearly Tutankhamun, and both fetuses were buried with him in KV62.
• In absence of a bloodline descendent, the vizier Ay assumed the throne — possibly as a power grab while Horemheb was away on campaign somewhere and unaware, or possibly with Horemheb’s complicity in a secretly negotiated agreement — and proceeded to marry Ankhesenamun.

It was long thought that Nefertiti was Ay’s daughter and therefore Ankhesenamun was Ay’s granddaughter, but now, with the strong likelihood that Nefertiti’s father was Amenhotep III, the abhorrent idea of Ay as grandfather of Ankhesenamun has to be abandoned. Of course, great-uncle is still abhorrent — plus the fact that he was 35-40 years older than she.

In any case, Ankhesenamun wanted none of it. So she wrote to the king of the Hittites, Suppiluliuma, asking him to send her a prince to marry and become king of Egypt. Suppiluliuma was understandably suspicious, but eventually agreed, and sent his son Zannanza to Egypt.

• However, Zannanza was met at the border and killed. It is a matter of speculation how that came about. If Ay and Horemheb had made a pact for succession, Horemheb may have used his role and rank as the top general to waylay Zannanza and pave the way for Ay and then for himself. Even without a secret deal, that may have been what happened. In any case, Zannanza was out of the picture.
• Soon after Ankhesenamun’s marriage to Ay, she disappeared from the record; no one knows whatever became of her, she simply vanished. Ay ruled for four years and died.
• Horemheb now stepped up as king. His first wife had died and he was now married to Mutnodjmet, who happened to be the daughter of Ay.
• Horemheb had no an heir, so he selected a favorite army general to succeed him: Ramesses I. Starting with those two, five senior military officers in a row became king — Seti I, Ramesses II (Ramesses the Great) and Merenptah — and all but the first two, Horemheb and Ramesses I, gained the throne via father-to-son bloodline succession. Unlike the 18th Dynasty, powerful women were conspicuously absent from the Nineteenth, until the very end.

Many mysteries remain. Some still say Kiya, not Nefertiti, was Tutankhamun’s mother; some think Smenkhkara and Nefertiti were the same person; some think Nefertiti co-ruled with Akhenaten for several years and then on her own, others think she disappeared in disfavor or died; some think Ay and Ankhesenamun did not marry and that Ay got rid of Ankhesenamun — any of which, if true, would change the picture greatly. It is unlikely that we will ever know for sure.

 

Tawoseret

At the end of the 19th Dynasty, intrigue again swept into the Egyptian court, and in order to appreciate where it all leads we need to follow it briefly before Tawoseret enters the picture.

Merenptah, Ramesses II’s thirteenth son and successor, died in 1204 and several of Ramesses’ grandsons began jockeying for position, two cousins in particular: Seti-Merenptah, Merenptah’s first-born son and designated heir, and Amenmesse, another grandson of Ramesses II who may have been Seti II’s nephew, or even one of his sons.

Amenmesse rose to power in Upper Egypt, leaving Seti II to reign only in the Delta and Lower Egypt as far south as Memphis. If Amenmesse was Seti’s son, as some have suggested, he may have been unhappy with his father’s succession plan — Seti had designated another son, also named Seti-Merenptah, as his successor, on the assumption that he, Seti, would become king without complication. Well, it didn’t work out that way.

After four years of this split kingdom, Seti managed to wrest power away from the usurper Amenmesse, purged his henchmen, ordered a damnatio memoriae to seal the deal, and was at last sole ruler of all Egypt — but only for a year or two, and died. When his time came, young Seti-Merenptah was out of the picture, perhaps already dead.

(For more detail on the possible scenarios, see Toby Wilkinson’s The Rise and Fall and Fall of Ancient Egypt [pp. 323-25] and Lives of the Ancient Egyptians [p. 262]. In one scenario, Seti waits in seclusion while Amenmesse rules; in another, Amenmesse takes over in the South in Seti’s second regnal year and it is suggested that he is Seti’s son.)

Into this temporary vacuum stepped the ambitious chancellor Bay, a commoner and transplanted Syrian, a master power monger and manipulator who had risen to a lofty perch in the government and was now in a position to engineer the coronation of a young lad named Merenptah-Siptah, commonly known simply as Siptah. He was probably the son of Amenmesse, says Toby Wilkinson, but Joyce Tyldesley says he might also have been a son of Seti II by a secondary wife, Tiaa.

Whoever he was, it didn’t matter much, because Bay’s intention was to establish the boy as a figurehead and then run things himself. The fact that Siptah was weak and sickly and had a twisted leg, perhaps due to polio or cerebral palsy, no doubt encouraged Bay, too. (See Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, 158-59.)

However, Seti II’s wife Tawoseret (Tauseret, Tawosret), had her own agenda. Bay continued to manage the affairs of state, but in regnal year Five Tawoseret managed to wrench power away from Bay and have him executed.

Within a year, Siptah died and now Tawoseret ruled as king, with full titles, following the leads of Hatshepsut 280 years before and Sobekneferu 300 years before that. Tawoseret was careful to do a proper damnatio memoriae on both Siptah and Bay without delay; she had Siptah’s name scratched out and replaced with that of her dead husband Seti II, and as for Bay, well, Egyptian records refer to him as “the great enemy” or simply “the Syrian upstart” — insult heaped upon execution. (See Wilkinson, Lives, p. 263, and Rise and Fall, p. 325.)

Tawoseret lasted only about four years but in her time she demonstrated strategic purpose and a ruthlessness that many a king might have admired. (Incidentally, Tawoseret was mentioned by Homer as the pharaoh who had dealings with Helen of Troy at the time of the Trojan War.)

Unfortunately, her legacy lacks the luster that normally attends admirable achievement. The dynasty led by such luminaries as Seti I and Ramesses II came to a whimpering end. Once again, a woman had presided over the demise of a dynasty, just as Sobekneferu had done 600 years before, and possibly Neithiqerti 400 years before that.

If we are tempted to draw a gender-based conclusion from that evidence, we will soon find ourselves corrected by reality; a monumental role of political leadership still lies ahead for women in Egyptian history.

But for now, the business at the end of the nineteenth Dynasty was to put things back in order, and again a military man was called in to do that — Sethnakht, a strongman in the mold of the Thutmose kings, Amenhhotep I and II, Horemheb, Seti I, Ramesses II, harkening back to Seqenenra Tao II and Mentuhotep, as well — even to Khasekhemwy and Narmer, in fact. The necessity for Sethnakht, as it was for Thutmose III, was to eradicate the notion of a female king.

Interestingly, he chose to take over KV14 for his tomb in the Valley of the Kings — Tawoseret’s tomb. Sethnakht removed her remains and those of her husband, Seti II. Maybe he just wanted the place all to himself, but it’s a big, big tomb; more likely, he wanted to erase Tawoseret from contemporary thought and historical record.

If that was his objective, it was not entirely successful. When a woman had presided over the collapse of government in times past, and even despite Hatshepsut’s very illustrious reign, the idea of a female king was anathema to the Egyptians, and one might expect the collapse of the Nineteenth Dynasty under Tawoseret to be another I-told-you-so moment that would banish women from positions of power from then on.

But in the years ahead, something very different lay in store. Authority would come to reside in the office of the God’s Wife of Amun, a post open only to celibate females, in which power would be passed on via serial adoption of chosen successors. And that power — both sacred and secular — was considerable.

[Editor: for more information on Tausret, check out Tausret: Forgotten Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt.]

God’s Wife of Amun

These women are not categorized as kings or sole-ruling regents or women of influence in the court, but they had enormous power and must be treated as a separate group of de facto rulers in the Third Intermediate and Late Periods.

In fact, their history goes back much earlier. The Middle Kingdom had God’s Wives of Min and Ptah, but with the dawn of the New Kingdom, in league with the ascendency of Amun as national god, Ahmose established the office of the God’s Wife of Amun and endowed it with the resources required to sustain it as a viable institution — ostensibly a religious office but moreover a buttress for the kingship.

A century later, Thutmose III shut down the office as part of his campaign to protect Egypt against the possibility of another female monarch — or at least he stripped it of any meaningful power. His daughter-in-law Tiaa, mother of Thutmose IV, did hold the title, but she was the last until the office was revived somewhat in the Twentieth Dynasty.

But in the Third Intermediate Period the office of the God’s Wife of Amun came into full bloom, fertilized by political expediency.

What was this all about? Well, on the surface the purpose of the God’s Wife of Amun was supposed to be religious. The God’s Wives could conduct rituals, make offerings, and serve as priestesses in ecclesiastical roles. Ultimately their role was to stimulate the god and perpetuate the order of the universe — pretty important stuff. At least that was the official story. In practicality, the office was a means for the pharaoh to get control of the Amun priesthood in Thebes and keep things quiet.

In the Third Intermediate Period and after, the office of God’s Wife became enormously powerful. Each God’s Wife had a prenomen and nomen just like a king, and also a cartouche, which had always been the sole province of the royal couple. They even wore crowns. But to understand how it all came to that, we have to go back to the twentieth Dynasty.

Royal authority declined after Ramesses III, who we may recall was the victim of a palace coup led by one of his wives. From his time on, the most powerful person in Upper Egypt was the High Priest of Amun in Thebes, who controlled the vast wealth, landholdings, workshops and food supplies of both Karnak and Medinet Habu temples, and therefore the entire economy and livelihood of the area. (See Wilkinson, Rise and Fall, p. 354ff.)

Throughout the rest of the New Kingdom, power oozed away from the king and his government up north, and in the south the priesthood of Amun gradually filled the vacuum with ritual, pomp and procession — especially procession, because it put the priests in direct contact with the public: the oracles in the procession connected the people with god, and the priests controlled the oracles. And gradually, over time, and driven by political exigencies, the God’s Wife of Amun came to control the priesthood.

There is a great deal of history that comes in at this point, between the end of the 20th Dynasty and the early Third Intermediate Period, and it’s complicated. So I will provide only a nutshell version and invite readers to explore the details on their own, in the excellent accounts by Toby Wilkinson, Joyce Tyldesley, Emily Teeter, Janet Johnson and others listed in the References, and elsewhere. Let’s leap ahead to the end of the Twentieth Dynasty.

Ramesses XI got the viceroy in Nubia, Panehsy, to quell a revolt against the High Priest, who was the king’s proxy in Thebes. Panehsy did so, in fact so successfully that he took over power and set himself up as ruler of Upper Egypt. That wouldn’t do, so Ramesses enlisted yet another strongman, Piankh, to eliminate Panehsy and set things right. But Piankh likewise assumed power in the south and named himself High Priest of Amun. Piankh then left for Nubia, to polish off Panehsy once and for all, and left his wife Nodjmet to manage things in Thebes. She was as tough and determined as he was, and she took charge.

When Piankh died, a general named Herihor was ushered in as High Priest, but Nodjmet, not to be sidelined, married Herihor so as to have control over the succession — Herihor had nineteen sons, so that sort of thing could not be left to chance.

As a consequence of all this political instability and the fading memory of the New Kingdom, whose last eight kings were weak and distant, the god Amun had risen to supremacy as virtual monarch; consequently oracles were more important than ever, for purposes of policy and propaganda. The High Priest of Amun in Thebes had all bases covered.

These leaders, naturalized Egyptians who were originally from Libya, were eventually defeated by Nubians from the Land of Kush, Kashta and his son Piankh-Piye (usually known simply as Piye, not to be confused with the earlier Piankh).

It may seem at this point that we have left our study of the powerful and influential women of Egypt behind. Not so, because now they bridge the gap from Libyan to Nubian rule, and back again: Shepenwepet I, daughter of the Libyan king Osorkon III and half-sister of the High Priest Rudamun, a Libyan, was God’s Wife of Amun, and she was succeeded by the Nubian Amenirdis I, the Kushite daughter of Kashta and Piye’s sister.

And the strategic succession continued. As time went on, the God’s Wife of Amun accrued great power and influence.

Piye went back to Nubia, but first he made sure to arrange for his daughter Shepenwepet to succeed Amenirdis I, as Shepenwepet II, who in turn adopted the next king’s daughter to succeed her, as Amenirdis II.

When Psamtek took over and founded the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty in Sais, 500 miles north, he too grafted onto the Amun priesthood by getting Amenirdis II, a Nubian, to adopt his daughter Nitiqret, a Libyan. As it turned out, when Shepenwepet II died, it was Nitiqret who succeeded her, and held the office for seventy years. Amenirdis II became Divine Adoratrice instead.

Eventually the office went to Ankhnesneferibra, daughter of Psamtek II, who reigned for sixty years, and also claimed the title High Priest of Amun. Clearly, the idea of a woman in a position of power and influence had fully evolved — at least in Egypt. But not so for the Persians, who conquered Egypt in 525, executed Psamtek III, and immediately abolished the office of the God’s Wife of Amun, bringing to an end more than 500 years of vested influence and power.

Shepenwepet II was God’s Wife of Amun through the reigns of three kings, Nitiqret for seventy years — longer than Ramesses the Great — and Ankhnesneferibra for sixty years. The office was indeed a cohesive institution.

And not only had the God’s Wife of Amun spanned the reigns of many kings and connected many dynasties, at its height the office had overtaken the priesthood. By the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty the God’s Wives of Amun were senior to the High Priest of Amun and in control of Egypt.

One of the keys to making all this work and preserving stability was that the office was hereditary, and since all of the God’s Wives were celibate women (i.e., from Ramesses VI on), succession had to be by appointment and adoption. That eliminated any dispute over which son of which King’s Wife would succeed, and made such excesses as the palace coup of the Twentieth Dynasty unnecessary. It also put the power of appointment under the king, who could rest easy up north or in Nubia, knowing that Upper Egypt and the Amun priests in Thebes — such a royal pain to the Eighteenth Dynasty kings — were under the control of the controlled.

It was not all political, it was not only Thebes — the God’s Wife of Amun had control of wealth and production of food and goods all over Upper Egypt — and it certainly was not all religious. The priesthood of Amun owned two-thirds of all temple land, ninety percent of the ships and eighty percent of the factories, and the God’s Wife of Amun controlled the Amun priesthood, which virtually meant that she controlled Egypt (Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, p. 175).

Temple Singers and Priestesses

In the Old Kingdom, many elite women were priestesses — hemet netjer, “wife of god.” That declined in the Middle Kingdom and was essentially eliminated in the New Kingdom, since the priesthood was professional and full-time versus rotational, and all-male. In the New Kingdom, the title hemet netjer was replaced by henutet, “servant of god,” or shemayet, “musician” — both suggesting ritual roles in temple worship.

But after the New Kingdom many women — often if not usually from the highest ranks of society — came to serve as priestesses and singers in the temple. The involvement of these women — the “musicians (or chantresses) of Amun” or the “Singers of the Interior” (i.e., the chambers of Amun) — was a direct consequence of the increasing religious authority of the God’s Wife of Amun.

Many secular instruments are known, including harps, lutes, lyres, horns, oboes, flutes, drums and clap sticks, but in temple worship, up until the Greco-Roman Period, they played only two:

• The sistrum, of which there were two kinds, the hooped version (sekhem or ib) made of bronze, and the naos type (seseshet) made of faience. Both had loose metal wires that made a rattling

  Sistrum, Late Period. Walters Art Museum, acc no. 54.1207, museum photo.

  sound and many, the naos type always, were decorated with the image of Hathor, to whom the sistrum was sacred.

• The menat, a beaded necklace with a counterpoise to hold it in place. The menat was also protective; both deities and people are often shown wearing it or presenting it

  Menat, Nubian Period. Faience. Museum of Fine Art acc, no. 21.11809c, museum photo.

  ritualistically as they would an ankh or lotus. The menat probably made a swishing sound, perhaps somewhat like a rain stick, possibly to replicate the sound of papyrus in the primeval swamp, or the rush of wind, which could account for its use in rejuvenating rituals — the breath of life, stirred by Shu in the Heliopolitan Ennead or by Amun in the Hermopolitan Ogdoad.

As they played these instruments, they chanted praises to the god. Ritual rhythmic dance may also have been an element of temple worship, because the purpose was to arouse and revitalize the god, and it was presumed that elite, fetching young women, dancing and cooing praises, would produce that result.

(For a close look at temple singers and roles of women in the Third Intermediate Period, see Emily Teeter and Janet H. Johnson, The Life of Meresamun, A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.)

 

Cleopatra VII

Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh of either gender to rule Egypt (51-30 B.C.), was a product and culmination of the Ptolemaic Period, which began in 332 B.C. and for the next 300 years remained awash in complexity and gore. Getting to Cleopatra VII leads us through a thicket of intrigue, skullduggery, incest, mayhem and murder, and plenty of women who took vicious delight in being part of it all.

Let us dispense with these 300 years as efficiently as possible, noting only those women who served as regents or occupied the throne following the untimely death or hasty departure of their husbands, which was a fairly common occurrence.

Throughout this time women figured prominently in the affairs of state, not necessarily as prominent women (with the arguable exception of some, particularly Cleopatra VII), but often as plotters of treachery and murder among their own families. Cartouches in reliefs were often left without names because of the “uncertainty as to who would be on the throne at completion”? (Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens, p. 210).

To prepare ourselves for Cleopatra, we should steep ourselves in Ptolemaic mayhem by beginning at the beginning, with the murder of Alexander the Great’s second wife, Stateira, by his first wife, Roxane. Alexander’s posthumous son Alexander IV was murdered by his guardian, and Alexander’s half-brother and heir, Phillip, was murdered by Alexander’s mother, Olympia. Eurydice, Phillip’s wife, was forced to commit suicide by her mother-in-law, who herself was executed two years later. These early events set the pace for the rest of Greek rule, and it doesn’t get any better.

Jumping ahead a century or so, Ptolemy IV executed his mother Berenice II and his brother Magas the first year of his reign — his mother poisoned, his brother scalded to death. He fathered Ptolemy V with his sister Arsinoe and then took up with a mistress, Agotheclea, who with her brother Agathocles poisoned his wife and likely Ptolemy as well. Now Agotheclea and Agathocles named themselves regents for Ptolemy V, because he was only five or six, but then they were lynched by a mob for the murders of the royal couple. The regency continued under the thumbs of palace officials.

At last, at age twelve, Ptolemy V was crowned, an event highlighted by the impalement of some rebels and the announcement of some tax reforms, commemorated on the Rosetta Stone. At thirteen, Ptolemy V — already an old hand in the Ptolemaic way of dealing with your fellow man — nabbed the rest of the rebel band and had them tortured to death. Well, he was a troubled youth; after all, his mother was murdered to keep her from becoming regent for him. But this sort of behavior ran in the blood of the Ptolemys — the “royal family’s appetite for internecine rivalry,” as Toby Wilkinson puts it (Rise and Fall, p. 459).

Ptolemy V was now married to Cleopatra I, a Syrian princess, who bore him two sons, Ptolemy VI and VIII, and a daughter, Cleopatra II.

When Ptolemy V was poisoned by his generals, Cleopatra I took over as regent for Ptolemy VI, but died four years later. Another commandeered regency ensued, this time under two courtiers of dubious character. They thought it best for Ptolemy VI to marry his sister, Cleopatra II, which he did, and they had four children, including Ptolemy VII and Cleopatra III.

The two courtier-regents, a eunuch named Eulaeus and an accountant named Lenaeus, managed to get into a war with Syria, during which young Ptolemy wound up a prisoner of war. In his vacancy the younger brother, Ptolemy VIII, was placed on the throne along with their sister, Cleopatra II.

Fast forward a bit to Ptolemy VI’s return to Egypt; he was now ruling in Memphis while Ptolemy VIII ruled in Alexandria. Of course that did not work out, and when Ptolemy VIII gained the upper hand, Ptolemy VI fled to Rome. However, the people liked Ptolemy VIII even less than they liked Ptolemy VI, so they brought him back and sent Ptolemy VIII into exile; he went to Libya, where he managed to be made king.

But then Ptolemy VI died in battle in Syria and Ptolemy VIII swooped back into Egypt, married their sister Cleopatra II, and — during the wedding festivities — had her son by Ptolemy VI murdered. That was, or would’ve been, the crown prince Ptolemy VII. Ptolemy VIII now had a child with Cleopatra II, a boy named Ptolemy Memphites, but he has no number in the succession, for reasons that will emerge shortly.

Ptolemy VIII had some concerns about the young lad, as he had with the previous crown prince, and also was suspicious about Cleopatra’s intentions, so to be safe he took up with his sister-wife’s daughter, his niece and stepdaughter, Cleopatra III, and married her, thus pitting his stepdaughter-niece-wife and his sister-wife against each other. Civil war broke out and Ptolemy VIII fled to Cyprus with the young Cleopatra III.

That left Cleopatra II in charge in Egypt. How shall we classify her? As regent, co-ruler, king? It is difficult in Ptolemaic times to say. But tenure on the throne was never very long, so it may not be necessary to belabor the matter.

Ptolemy VIII was concerned that the boy Ptolemy Memphites might be crowned in his absence, so he had him kidnapped and brought to Cyprus, where he had him chopped to pieces and then sent the mutilated corpse to Cleopatra II for her birthday. That might seem harsh, but his wife in turn made a public display of the boy’s remains to foment animosity against her husband-brother and curry support for herself.

Skullduggery, intrigue, murder, incest, royalty running off to hide in exile and whatnot — no soap opera could ever come close. But in Ptolemaic Egypt, whenever you think you’ve heard it all, there’s something new still ahead.

Berenice III, for example, married her uncle, Ptolemy X, and assumed the throne at his death — again, a woman in power. She married her stepson, Ptolemy XI. That proved unwise, because within three weeks he murdered her and then nineteen days later he himself was lynched. Then, without a bloodline heir, the illegitimate son of Ptolemy IX was pressed into service, crowned Ptolemy XII, and was married to his sister.

Despite his inauspicious start, the thing about Ptolemy XII is that he was the father of Cleopatra VII — the most fascinating of all the Ptolemys, and the only Greek pharaoh in 300 years who even bothered to learn the Egyptian language. We may not be in position to appreciate Cleopatra VII as fully as we might, without this look at the turbulent times preceding her.

Now, Ptolemy XII and his sister-wife Cleopatra V had four daughters, Berenice IV, two Cleopatras (VI and VII) and Arsinoe, and two sons, Ptolemy XIII and XIV.

Berenice IV managed to take over in Egypt while her father was away, and took as a male consort one of her cousins, but a week later had him strangled and married someone else, who lasted two years — pretty long for a royal consort in the Ptolemaic court, and he died not at her bidding but at the hands of the Romans, who had invaded Egypt. Then when Ptolemy XII himself returned he had his daughter Berenice executed.

Happily, he had another daughter, who would one day be Cleopatra VII. She traveled with him to Rhodes, Ephesus and Rome, and picked up languages — she is said to have been fluent in seven — and apparently learned a lot about international diplomacy. It seems unlikely that she learned much from her father; more plausibly, she was very observant and self-taught.

She was seventeen when Ptolemy XII died and she became pharaoh, in 51. However, she shared the throne with one of her brothers, Ptolemy XIII, who was then ten years old.

Meanwhile, in Rome Julius Caesar and General Pompey had locked horns in a power struggle. Cleopatra decided to side with Pompey, which, as things turned out, seems strange, but that’s what she did. She had problems at home, as well. Her brother-husband Ptolemy XIII plotted to have her killed, but she got wind of it and fled.

Civil war ensued — Cleopatra backed by her army in exile, Ptolemy VIII by his in Alexandria. Now Caesar won the fight with Pompey, who fled to Alexandria — where, instead of safe haven, he found himself a victim of Ptolemy XIII, who had him beheaded and made a present of his pickled head to Caesar. Imagine his disappointment when Caesar was appalled that such a thing could have happened to Pompey. A Roman general deserved better treatment. This would not go well for Ptolemy.

Seizing the moment, Cleopatra had herself smuggled into Caesar’s quarters rolled up in a carpet — bizarre as that seems, it may in fact be true — and when the carpet was unrolled, what should appear to Caesar’s wondering eyes but the estranged pharaoh of Egypt, the unique and always captivating Cleopatra VII.

The meeting went well. Caesar and Cleopatra holed up in the royal palace and spent the winter there, apparently consoling each other and cuddling. When they emerged, in March of 47, Cleopatra was pregnant.

Caesar backed Cleopatra, but Ptolemy XIII still claimed his own right to the throne, and to complicate things even more, there was also a movement afoot to make Cleopatra’s younger sister Arsinoe co-ruler with Ptolemy XIII. But that was not to be. Ptolemy XIII drowned, Arsinoe was taken off to Rome in chains, and Cleopatra VII assumed the throne, unencumbered at last, with Ptolemy XIV, her eleven-year-old brother, as consort. Then she had Caesar’s baby: Caesarion, Ptolemy XV. Caesar was fifty-two, Cleopatra was twenty-one.

In 46 Cleopatra and her child husband-brother went to Rome and stayed two years. In 44 Caesar was assassinated, so Cleopatra went home. Young Ptolemy XIV died soon thereafter, not certainly but probably at her behest. Her sister Arsinoe was living in Ephesus, and there was still talk of putting her on the throne in Egypt. That posed an inconvenient prospect for Cleopatra, so she had Arsinoe murdered.

Rome was now in turmoil again as Mark Antony and Octavian, Caesar’s appointed heir, squared off to see who would rule the Roman Empire in the wake of Caesar’s assassination. They had divided the Empire and were governing on their own, Octavian in the west and Antony in the east; it was a tense and dicey situation.

Meanwhile, Cleopatra needed a protector and ally. She chose Antony, who was fourteen years older than she, and cemented the relationship as she had done with Caesar. She bore twins in 40 B.C., just as Antony was about to marry Octavia, who happened to be the sister of Octavian. If that was his attempt to repair things with Octavian, it did not work very well.

War ensued. Antony and Cleopatra assembled an armada of 230 Egyptian ships and sailed north to Samos and Ephesus, and then to Athens. Antony repudiated Octavia, but of course that did nothing to improve things with her brother, Octavian.

Now he and Cleopatra were officially and publicly a couple, and headed for a reckoning known to history as the Battle of Actium, off the coast of Greece in the year 31.

Antony soon found out — as Toby Wilkinson puts it, with delicious understatement — that “his delusions of grandeur were not matched by his tactical abilities.” The battle was a disaster. Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt with 60 of their 230 ships. Antony holed up in Libya, Cleopatra in Alexandria.

At last, in 30, Egypt fell to Roman might and Greco-Egyptian entropy. Rome took it over, not as a Roman province but only as an imperial estate. Egypt’s 3,100 years as a sovereign nation were over and the country served now only as a supplier of produce and wealth for Rome.

But the Cleopatra story was not yet over. A pathetic and fittingly Ptolemaic ending was still to come. Somebody told Antony that Cleopatra had killed herself, so, consumed by grief, he fell on his sword. But he bungled it and survived, though mortally wounded. Cleopatra was told and she had Antony brought to her apartment, where he then died. So she killed herself.

Legend has it that she let an asp bite her, and that may even be true. All the rest of this soap opera is true, so why not?

Oh, and the son of Caesar, Caesarion — Ptolemy XV? Eliminated, needless to say.

It might be added, unimportantly, that Cleopatra did not look anything like Elizabeth Taylor or Marilyn Monroe, both of whom played her. She was, by all accounts and judging from her image struck on coins, not particularly attractive. However, she was captivating, and apparently irresistible. She was said to be extremely intelligent, charming, poised, shrewd, and fluent in seven languages — she had all the qualities that would appeal to, say, a Roman general or emperor.

But as a monarch, she was no Hatshepsut. Perhaps it was the destiny of the Greek rulers to fail — a genetic impediment to order that could not be overcome. Perhaps the temptations of self-indulgence and skullduggery were too overpowering to resist. Perhaps, after centuries of decline since the New Kingdom, Egypt had forgotten how, or had lost its will, to be great. After 300 years of Ptolemaic excess and deficiency, perhaps Cleopatra could do no better.

In any case, she presided over the demise of ancient Egypt, and that brings our exploration of powerful and influential women to an end.

Brian Alm took his undergraduate and graduate degrees in English, but later switched to Egyptology. He is a retired college teacher, editor and former naval officer, and now teaches mini-courses, lectures and writes for both online and print publications on ancient Egyptian culture in general, but with special focus on the New Kingdom. He is an active participant in several international Egyptology societies and a member of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, his alma mater. He lives in Rock Island, Illinois.

 

 

 

References and Additional Resources

 

Booth, Charlotte. Ancient Egypt As It Was, Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2008

 

Brewer, Douglas; Emily Teeter, Egypt and the Egyptians, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007

 

Clayton, Peter. Chronicle of the Pharaohs, London: Thames & Hudson, 1994

 

Dodson, Aidan; Dyan Hilton. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, London: Thames & Hudson, 2004

 

Robins, Gay. Women in Ancient Egypt, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard U.P., 1993

 

Roehrig, Catharine, ed. Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, Metropolitan Museum of Art – New York; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005

 

Shaw, Ian; Paul Nicholson. The Illustrated Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, Cairo: American University Cairo:Press, 2008

 

Shaw, Ian. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Oxford: Oxford University:Press, 2000

 

Southern, Patricia. Antony & Cleopatra, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2009

 

Teeter, Emily; Janet H. Johnson, eds. The Life of Meresamum

 

Copyright by Brian Alm, 2018, all rights reserved.

Tags: Ahhotep I, Ahmose-Nefertari, Gods Wife of Amun, Hatshepsut, Hetepheres I, King's Great Wife, Meresamun, Meritaten, Merneith, Mutemwia, Sobeknefru, Tausret, Tetisheri, Tiye