Maathorneferure
| Maathorneferure | |
|---|---|
| Queen consort of Egypt | |
 Maathorneferure at Tanis |
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| Full name | Maathorneferure |
| Titles | Great Royal Wife, Mistress of the Two Lands |
| Birthplace | Hatti |
| Place of death | unknown |
| Buried | unknown |
| Consort | Pharaoh Ramesses II |
| Dynasty | 19th of Egypt |
| Father | King Hattusili III of the Hittites |
| Mother | Queen Pudukhepa |
| Religious beliefs | Ancient Egyptian religion |
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| Maathorneferure in hieroglyphs |
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Maathorneferure was an Ancient Egyptian queen, the Great Royal Wife of Ramesses II.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Family
Maathorneferure was a daughter of the Hittite king Hattusili III and his wife Queen Pudukhepa. She was the sister of crown prince Nerikkaili of Hatti and the sister of the later Hittite king Tudhaliya IV.
Maathorneferure was married to the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 34th year of his reign, becoming the Great King's Wife. Her original name is unknown, but her Egyptian name translates as "One who sees Horus, the invisible splendor of Ra".
[edit] Life
Egypt and the Hittite empire had been increasingly at odds since the demise of the kingdom of the Mitanni, and Maathorneferure's marriage to the Egyptian king was the conclusion of the peace process which had begun with the signing of a peace treaty thirteen years earlier.
On the Marriage Stela it is claimed that "The daughter of the great chief of Kheta marched in [front] of the army [...]" (Breasted) [2]
Maathorneferure first lived at the royal palace at Pi-Ramesse. Records indicate that she later lived in the royal harem at Mi-wer (Gurob). Queen Maathorneferure is mentioned on a papyrus.
The partial text on the papyrus states: [...] small bag, the king's wife Maathorneferure (may she live) (the daughter of) the great ruler of Khatti, [...] Dayt garment of 28 cubits, 4 palms, breadth 4 cubits, [bag?] of 14 cubits, 2 palms, breath 4 cubits - 2 items [...] palms, breath 4 cubits(from digitalegypt_ [3]
At Tanis, there is a broken statue of Ramesses that shows her (mostly destroyed) figure touching his leg, together with her cartouche.
During the latter half of the first millennium BCE Maathorneferure's marriage to the pharaoh gave rise to the tale inscribed on the Bentresh Stela in which the sister of a foreign queen is healed by a divine statue sent from Egypt.[4]
[edit] Alternative Spellings
- Maat-hor-neferure
- Maatnefrure
- Maat-hor-nefrure
[edit] References
- "Marriage Stela" in Ancient Records of Egypt by J. H. Breasted, Part Three, §415ff
- "The Bentresh Stela" in Ancient Egyptian Literature by M. Lichtheim, Vol.3, pp. 90ff.
- Ramesside Inscriptions by Kenneth Anderson Kitchen
- Letters of the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East: The Royal Correspondence of the Late Bronze Age by Trevor R. Bryce, p. 117ff.
- The Kingdom Of The Hittites by Trevor Robert Bryce, p. 283
[edit] Notes
- ^ Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, 2004, ISBN 0-500-05128-3, p.140
- ^ J.H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Three, § 415ff.
- ^ [1] Gurob, papyrus 32795
- ^ The Bentresh Stela
