Nefertari

Tomb wall depicting Nefertari, the great royal wife of pharaoh Ramesses II.

Nefertari (Nefertari Merytmut or Mut-Nefertari) (c. 1290–1255 BC) was the Great Royal Wife (or principal wife) of Ramesses the Great. Nefertari means Beautiful Companion. She is one of the best known Egyptian queens, next to Cleopatra, Nefertiti and Hatshepsut. Her lavishly decorated tomb, QV66, is the largest and most spectacular in the Valley of the Queens. Ramesses also constructed a temple for her at Abu Simbel next to his colossal monument here.

Biography

Although Nefertari’s origins are unknown, discoveries from her tomb, including a cartouche of Pharaoh Ay, suggest she may have been related to the 18th Dynasty, which included King Tut, Nefertiti, Akhenaten and Ay. At age thirteen Nefertari married Ramesses, only fifteen, before he ascended the throne, and remained the most important of his eight wives in Upper Egypt for at least the next twenty years. By the 1240s BC her prominence appears to wane, and her images by the Pharaoh's side become scarce.

Nefertari had at least four sons and two daughters, although none of these children succeeded the throne. Ramesses’ heir was Prince Merneptah, his 13th son by another wife, Isetnofret. Ramesses sired at least forty-eight to fifty sons during his long reign. She died sometime during the Regnal Year 25 of Ramesses' reign, and Isetnofret became his new principal wife.

Status

Nefertari depicted offering sistrums to Hathor in her smaller temple of Abu Simbel

Nefertari was quite probably the only Egyptian royal wife, other than Queen Tiy, to be deified during her lifetime. Ramesses' temple at Abu Simbel also has a smaller temple nearby dedicated to Nefertari and the goddess Hathor—a very unusual act, as temples were usually dedicated to deities, not mortals.

Her status is confirmed by the fact that she was depicted as part of her husband’s entourage, even during important voyages such as a trip to Nubia to commission a new temple built at Abu Simbel. Nefertari is also depicted as being equal in size to Ramesses, a rarity indicating her importance to the pharaoh.

Her prominence is further supported by cuneiform tablets from the Hittite city of Hattusas (today Boghazkoy, Turkey), containing Nefertari's correspondence with the king Hattusilis and his wife Pudukhepa. She appears to have been instrumental in maintaining peace between Egyptians and Hittites, which eventually led to Ramesses the Great marriage to a Hittite princess.

Ramesses’ unusual affection for his wife, as written on her tomb's walls, shows that some ancient Egyptian marriages were not simply matters of convenience or means to accumulate greater power and alliances, but were based around emotional attachment. Poetry written by Ramesses about his dead wife is featured on some of the walls of her burial chamber. ("My love is unique—no one can rival her, for she is the most beautiful woman alive. Just by passing, she has stolen away my heart.") embalming took 70 days for a mummy to get mummified.

Titles

# nomen or birth name
Queen Nefertari— Wife of Ramesses II –(Tomb of Nefertari) in hieroglyphs
Era: New Kingdom (1550–1069 BC)

Nefertari's full range of titles were wrt ḥswt (great of praise), bnrt mrwt (sweet of love), ḥmt nswt wrt (Great Royal Wife), nbt im3t (lady of charm), ḥmt nswt wrt mryt.f (Great Royal Wife, his beloved), nbt t3wy (lady of the two lands), ḥnwt t3w nbw (lady of all lands), ḥmt k3 nẖt (wife of the strong bull), ḥmt-nṯr (god's wife) ḥnwt šmḥw mẖw (lady of Upper and Lower Egypt).

Ramesses referred to his beloved wife as "the one for whom the sun shines." She was also often referred to as Nefertari Merit-en-Mut, meaning "the Lovely One, Beloved of Mut."

fuck you

In Popular Culture

• Nefertari was portrayed in The Ten Commandments as Queen Nefretiri, and was played by Anne Baxter. In the film, Nefertiri is deeply, head-over-heels in love with Moses, and hates Ramesses (or Rameses, as he is called in the film). She turns against Moses after he returns from exile and tells her, "The Moses who loved you was another man", and hates him after her firstborn child dies as a result of one of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, although she saved Moses' son Gershom.
• She features prominently in the Ramses series of novels by Christian Jacq.
• In the anime and manga One Piece, the character Nefertari Vivi features prominently in the Little Garden and Alabasta arcs.

External links

• Queen Nefertari Meryetmut

References

• Nos ancêtres de l'Antiquité, 1991, Christian Settipani, p. 176
• Grajetzki, Wolfram (2005) Ancient Egyptian Queens – a hieroglyphic dictionary
• Reeves, N et al, (1996) The Complete Valley of the Kings
• Rosalie David, (1998) Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt
• Shaw, Ian (2000), The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
• Shaw, Ian (1995), The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt
• Siliotti, A. (2002), Egypt: Splendours of an Ancient Civilisation. Italy: Thames & Hudson.
• Bradley, P. (1999), Ancient Egypt: Reconstructing the Past. United Kingdom: Cambridge.
• Hagen,R&R. (2003), Egypt: People, Gods, Pharaohs. Maat & cartouche of Nefertari, pg 41.
• Leblanc, C. (2001). Osiris.net [internet]. [place of publication unknown]. [publisher unknown]. Available from: <http://www.osirisnet.net/tombes/pharaons/nefertari/e_nefertari.htm>[27/02/2005].
• "Women in power B.C. 4500-1000 from Guide2womenleaders.com, URL accessed 03/21/06