Beketaten
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| Beketaten in hieroglyphs | |||||
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| Era: New Kingdom (1550–1069 BC) | |||||
Beketaten (14th century BCE) was an Ancient Egyptian princess of the 18th dynasty. She was the youngest daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Tiye, thus the sister of Pharaoh Akhenaten[1].
Her name means "Handmaid of Aten", which indicates she was born during the Amarna Period, and since on pictures she seems to be the same age as Akhenaten's daughters, some see this as an evidence of a long co-regency between Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. She was depicted in the Amarna tomb of Huya twice.
Beketaten's only known title is King's Daughter of his Body. It is likely that she died young since she is not mentioned in the historical records after Queen Tiye's death. Some scholars have speculated that Nebetah, Amenhotep III's youngest daughter was identical with Beketaten.[2] However, no evidence proves that they are the same people.
According to one theory Beketaten was in fact a daughter of Akhenaten and his secondary wife Kiya. She can be indentical with the princess who is shown with Kiya and whose name ends in -aten but full name was lost. After Kiya's demise her depictions were re-carved to show Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten with their daughters Meritaten Tasherit and Ankhesenpaaten Tasherit (who might have been fictional and made up to fill the place of Kiya's child on these depictions).[3]
Sources
- ^ Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson (2004), p.154
- ^ Joyce Tyldesley: Nefertiti – Egypt's Sun Queen
- ^ Dr. Marc Gabolde: The End of the Amarna Period