Egyptian queens in the 18th dynasty up to the end of the reign of Amenhotpe III

Thesis

Much of the available material for this thesis is monumental and mostly concerned with the official view of "queenship", rather than the individual queen. Documents which might tell us something about the lives, characters and influence of these women are almost entirely lacking. It is possible that anomalies in the material which we have might supply some hints about the latter, but before any satisfactory examination can be made along these lines, we must first establish what the official position of the queen was; otherwise we cannot hope to pick out any unusual traits of a particular queen.

The first step in this study must be to identify the women we can consider as queens. The material shows that not only the king's chief wife (ḥmt nsw wrt) but also the king's mother (mwt nsw) are queens, while secondary wives (ḥmt nsw) are not. The titles "king's daughter" (s3t nsw) and "king's sister" (snt nsw) are not restricted to queens, but the first is only used by queens of royal birth, and the second by sisters of kings (section 1). This is helpful for establishing the genealogy of the 18th dynasty royal family, which is reconstructed in section 2 to provide a framework for the material.

In sections 3 and 4, I have made a systematic study of the iconography and titles of queens, to see if there is any distinction made in their use by queens, which might suggest a varying status among queens. For this purpose, I have divided the queens into three major types, and four minor ones each consisting of an individual queen in unique circumstances, on the basis of their use of the titles ḥmt nsw wrt and mwt nsw.

Continued in thesis ...

Authors: Robins, G

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-m8yzd0p90
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Egyptian queens; antiquities; Egypt; women; queens; Amenhotpe III; 18th dynasty
• Subjects: Women -- Egypt -- History; Egypt -- Social life and customs -- To 332 B.C; Egypt -- Antiquities; Egypt -- History -- Eighteenth dynasty, ca. 1570-1320 B.C; Queens -- Egypt