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Yet she was by no means unique, for within a couple of decades her descendant Khentkawes II held the same titles, was again portrayed with the royal cobra at her brow, and had her own pyramid at the new royal cemetery, Abusir. Khentkawes I certainly left her mark at Giza, where memories that a female ruler had built a great tomb persisted for two millennia.
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Yet in light of the new archaeological evidence, her ambiguous title is now interpreted as ‘Mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, King of Upper and Lower Egypt’. The tomb also revealed Khentkawes I’s official titles in a hieroglyphic inscription, initially translated as ‘King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt’ until British Egyptologist Alan Gardiner found a “philologically tenable” alternative translation meaning that Khentkawes I had only been ‘the mother of two kings’ rather than a king herself. For here she was portrayed enthroned, holding a sceptre and wearing both the royal ‘uraeus’ cobra at her brow and tie-on false beard of kingship combined with her traditional female dress. In fact Khentkawes I’s kingly status was suggested as early as 1933 by Egyptian archaeologist Selim Hassan during his initial excavation of her tomb. It had its own funerary temple, a causeway and, says Ana Tavares, joint field director of the current excavations at her Giza tomb site, “quite exceptionally, a valley temple and a basin/harbour, which suggests that she reigned as a pharaoh at the end of the fourth dynasty”. Khentkawes I’s funerary complex was as elaborate as the nearby pyramids of her male predecessors – so elaborate, in fact, that her tomb has been dubbed the Fourth Pyramid of Giza. She was the daughter of King Menkaure, and the wife of King Shepseskaf (ruled c2510–2502 BC), and bore at least two further kings – with new evidence supporting the possibility that she herself also ruled Egypt. One woman whose status has long been debated is Khentkawes I. Mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, King of Upper and Lower EgyptĬ2550–2520 BC, possibly at the royal capital Memphis Yet, only the women’s titles are routinely downgraded or dismissed, even when the evidence reveals that some, like those profiled on these pages, did rule Egypt as pharaoh.
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The evidence for female rulers is as fragmentary as it is for many male counterparts – with few known dates of birth or death, and no known portraits for many. Her name nonetheless appeared on a list of Egypt’s earliest kings which was discovered in 1986. When her tomb was discovered, at Abydos in 1900, it was claimed that “it can hardly be doubted that Merneith was a king”, until the realisation that ‘he’ was a ‘she’ saw her status switched to ‘queen’. These well-known names were simply drawing on female predecessors dating back to the beginning of Egypt’s written history and the first such ruler, Merneith (whose reign is dated to around 2970 BC). And while the c15th-century BC Hatshepsut ruled as a pharaoh in her own right, she is still often regarded as the exception that proves the rule – even though the evidence suggests there were at the very least seven female pharaohs, including Nefertiti and the great Cleopatra. Yet some Egyptologists still downgrade female rulers by defining them by the relatively modern term ‘queen’, which can simply refer to a woman married to a male king. Other women were overseers and administrators, or they held titles ranging from doctor, guard and judge to treasurer, vizier (prime minister) and viceroy.Īnd some women were also monarchs, from the regents who ruled on behalf of underage sons to those who governed in their own right as pharaoh, a term simply meaning ‘the one from the palace’. So while the most common female title in Egypt’s 3,000-year history was ‘lady of the house’ (housewife), many women worked in the temple hierarchy. This no doubt explains why the Greek historian Herodotus was forced to conclude that the Egyptians “have reversed the ordinary practices of mankind” when visiting Egypt around 450 BC. Such mixing of the sexes was not confined to myth, since Egypt’s women were portrayed alongside men at every level of society.