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Sobekneferu

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Sobekneferu or Neferusobek (Template:Langx) was the first confirmed queen regnant (or 'female king') of ancient Egypt and the last pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. She ascended to the throne following the death of Amenemhat IV, possibly her brother or husband, though their relationship is unproven. Instead, she asserted legitimacy through her father Amenemhat III. Her reign lasted 3 years, 10 months, and 24 days, according to the Turin Canon.

Sobekneferu adopted the full royal titulary distinguishing herself from any prior female rulers. She was also the first ruler to associate herself with the crocodile god Sobek through her regnal name. Contemporary evidence for her reign is scant. There are a few partial statues – one with her face, now lost – and some inscriptions that have been uncovered. It is assumed that the Northern Mazghuna pyramid was intended for her, though this assignment is speculative with no firm evidence to confirm it. The monument was abandoned immediately after its substructure was completed. A papyrus discovered in Harageh mentions a place called Sekhem Sobekneferu that may refer to the pyramid. Her rule is also attested to on several king lists.

FamilyEdit

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File:Upper part of portrait statuette of Amenemhat III wearing the nemes 01.jpg
Amenemhat III, father of Sobekneferu

Sobekneferu is thought to be the daughter of Pharaoh Amenemhat III,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn but her mother's identity is unknown.Template:Sfn Amenemhat III had two known wives, Aat and an unnamed queen, both buried in his pyramid at Dahshur. He had at least one other daughter, Neferuptah, who had a burial at his second pyramid at Hawara that was eventually moved to her own pyramid.Template:Sfn Neferuptah appears to have been groomed for the throne as she had her name enclosed in a cartouche.Template:Sfn Evidence of burials of three other princesses – Hathorhotep, Nubhotepet, and Sithathor – were found at the Dahshur complex, but it is not clear whether these princesses were his daughters as the complex was used for royal burials throughout the Thirteenth Dynasty.Template:Sfn

Amenemhat III's eventual heir, Amenemhat IV, is attested to be the son of Hetepti, though her titulary lacks reference to her being a 'King's Wife'.Template:Sfn The relationship between Amenemhat IV and Sobekneferu remains unclear. According to the ancient historian Manetho in Aegyptiaca they were brother and sister.Template:Sfn According to Gae Callender they were also probably married.Template:Sfn Although, neither the title of 'King's Wife' nor 'King's Sister' are attested for Sobekneferu.Template:Sfn Sobekneferu's accession may have been motivated by the lack of a male heir for Amenemhat IV.Template:Sfn However, two kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty, Sobekhotep I and Sonbef, have been speculated to be sons of his based on their shared nomen 'Amenemhat'.Template:Sfn If this is the case, Sobekneferu may have taken the throne after Amenemhat IV's death, because she perceived them as illegitimate.Template:Sfn

Female kingshipEdit

Sobekneferu was the first confirmed woman to rule Egypt in her own right as 'female king' and the first to adopt the full royal titulary.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn She was also the first ruler associated with the crocodile god Sobek by name, whose identity appears in both her birth and throne names.Template:Sfn Kara Cooney views ancient Egypt as unique in allowing women to acquire formal – and absolute – power. She posits that women were elevated to the throne during crises to guide the civilization and maintain social order. Though, she also notes that, this elevation to power was illusory. Women acquired the throne as temporary replacements for a male leader; their reigns were regularly targeted for erasure by their successors; and overall, Egyptian society was oppressive to women.Template:Sfn

In ancient Egyptian historiography, there is some evidence for other female rulers. As early as the First Dynasty, Merneith is proposed to have ruled as regent for her son.Template:Sfn In the Fifth Dynasty, Setibhor may have been a female king regnant based on the manner her monuments were targeted for destruction.Template:Sfn Another candidate, Nitocris, is generally considered to have ruled in the Sixth Dynasty,Template:Sfn though there is little proof of her historicityTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and she is not mentioned before the Eighteenth Dynasty.Template:Sfn The kingship of Nitocris may instead be a Greek legendTemplate:Sfn and the name may originate from an incorrect translation of Neitiqerty Siptah.Template:Sfn

ReignEdit

By the time of Sobekneferu's accession to the throne, the Middle Kingdom was in decline.Template:Sfn It had peaked during the reigns of Senusret III and Amenemhat III.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Senusret III formed the basis for the legendary character Sesostris described by Manetho and Herodotus.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn He led military expeditions into Nubia and into Syria-PalestineTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and built a Template:Convert tall mudbrick pyramid as his monument.Template:Sfn He reigned for 39 years, as evidenced by an inscription in Abydos, where he was buried.Template:Sfn Amenemhat III, in contrast, presided over a peaceful Egypt that consisted of monumental constructions, the development of Faiyum, numerous mining expeditions, and the building of two pyramids at Dahshur and at Hawara.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn His reign lasted at least 45 years, probably longer.Template:Sfn Nicolas Grimal notes that such long reigns contributed to the end of the Twelfth Dynasty, but without the collapse that ended the Old Kingdom.Template:Sfn Amenemhat IV, ruled for nine or ten years,Template:Sfn but there is scant information regarding his reign.Template:Sfn

It is to this backdrop that Sobekneferu acquired the throne.Template:Sfn She reigned for around four years, but as with her predecessor, there are few surviving records.Template:Sfn Her death brought a close to the Twelfth DynastyTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and began the Second Intermediate Period spanning the following two centuries.Template:Sfn

This period is poorly understood owing to the paucity of references to the rulers of the time.Template:Sfn She was succeeded by either Sobekhotep ITemplate:Sfn or Wegaf,Template:Sfn who inaugurated the Thirteenth Dynasty.Template:Sfn Stephen Quirke proposed, based on the numerosity of kingships and brevity of their rule, that a rotating succession of kings from Egypt's most powerful families took the throne.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn They retained Itj-tawy as their capital through the Thirteenth Dynasty.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Their role, however, was relegated to a reduced status and power rested within the administration.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn It is generally accepted that Egypt remained unified until late into the dynasty.Template:Sfn Kim Ryholt contends that the Fourteenth Dynasty instead arose in the Nile Delta at the end of Sobekneferu's reign as a rival to the Thirteenth.Template:Sfn Thomas Schneider argues that the evidence for this hypothesis is weak.Template:Sfn

AttestationsEdit

Contemporary sourcesEdit

Graffiti and sealsEdit

Only a small collection of sources attest to Sobekneferu's rule as pharaoh of Egypt.Template:Sfn In Nubia, a graffito in the fortress of Kumma records the height of the Nile inundation at Template:Cvt during her third regnal year.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Another inscription discovered in the Eastern Desert records "year 4, second month of the Season of the Emergence".Template:Sfn The British Museum has a fine cylinder seal (EA16581) bearing her name and royal titulary in its collection.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The seal is made of glazed steatite and is Template:Cvt long with a diameter of Template:Cvt.Template:Sfn The British Museum also possesses an inscribed scarab (EA66159), measuring Template:Cvt by Template:Cvt and Template:Cvt in height, made of glazed steatite bearing the name of Sobekneferu.Template:Sfn

StatuaryEdit

File:Statue, E 27135 (0320O7 01).jpg
Bust of Sobekneferu in the Louvre

A handful of headless statues of Sobekneferu have been identified.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn In one quartzite image, she blends feminine and masculine dress with an inscription reading 'daughter of Re(?), of his body, Sobekneferu, may she live like Re forever'.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn On her torso rests a pendant modelled on that worn by Senusret III.Template:Sfn Three basalt statues of the female king were found in Tell ed-Dab'a;Template:Sfn two depict her in a seated posture, another shows her kneeling.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In one, she is depicted trampling the Nine Bows, representing the subjugation of Egypt's enemies.Template:Sfn The three statues appear to be life-sized.Template:Sfn One statue with her head is known. The bust was held in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin but was lost during World War II. Its existence is confirmed by photographic images and plaster casts. It fits on top of the lower part of a seated statuette discovered at Semna which bears the royal symbol smꜣ tꜣwy on the side of the throne.Template:Sfn The lower half is held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

BuildingsEdit

There is evidence that she had structures built in Heracleopolis Magna and added to the Pyramid of Amenemhat III in Hawara.Template:Sfn She left inscriptions on four granite papyriform columns found at a temple in Kom el-Akârib, while a further ten granite beams there may date to the same period.Template:Sfn Her monumental works consistently associate her with Amenemhat III rather than Amenemhat IV, supporting the theory that she was the royal daughter of Amenemhat III and perhaps only a stepsister to Amenemhat IV, whose mother was not royal. Contemporary sources from her reign show that Sobekneferu adopted only the 'King's Daughter' title, which further supports this hypothesis.Template:Sfn An example of such an inscription comes from a limestone block of 'the Labyrinth' of the Pyramid at Hawara. It reads 'Beloved of Dḥdḥt the good god Nỉ-mꜣꜥt-rꜥ [Amenemhat III] given [...] * Daughter of Re, Sobekneferu lord of Shedet, given all life'. The inscription is also the only known reference to a goddess Dḥdḥt.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn By contrast, Amenemhat IV's name does not appear at Hawara.Template:Sfn

  • Columns Amenemhat III Sobekneferu.jpg

    Columns inscribed with the names of Amenemhat III and Sobekneferu, from the Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Uncertain attestationsEdit

In Israel, a possible reference to Sobekneferu before she became a ruler is found on the base of a statue discovered in Gezer. This statue bears her name and is identified as a representation of a "king's daughter". However, it may also refer to a daughter of Senusret I or another unknown Sobekneferu.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn A damaged statuette (MET 65.59.1) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been suggested to represent Sobekneferu, though this assignment is unverified.Template:Sfn The schist bust depicts a woman in a wig, wearing a crown composed of a uraeus cobra and two vultures with outstretched wings which is of unknown iconography, and the ḥb-sd cloak.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn A headless black basalt or granite sphinx discovered by Édouard Naville in Qantir bearing a damaged inscription is also assigned to Sobekneferu.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

  • Statuette of a Late Middle Kingdom Queen MET 65.59.1 01.jpg

    Damaged statuette of a Late Middle Kingdom Queen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, possibly depicting Sobekneferu

  • Statuette of a Late Middle Kingdom Queen MET 65.59.1 05.jpg

    The unique twin vultures with wings outstretched either side of a uraeus cobra which winds through the centre of the subject's head

Historical sourcesEdit

In the Thutmosid period, she is mentioned on the Karnak list of early Egyptian kings.Template:Sfn In the Ramesside period, she is mentioned in the Saqqara Tablet,Template:Sfn and Turin Canon,Template:Sfn but is conspicuously excluded from the Abydos King List.Template:Sfn Her exclusion, along with all other female kings, pharaohs of the First and Second Intermediate Periods, and of the Amarna Period, is an indicator of whom Ramesses II and Seti I viewed as the legitimate rulers of Egypt.Template:Sfn She is credited in the Turin Canon with a reign of 3 years, 10 months, and 24 days.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the Hellenistic period, she is mentioned by Manetho as 'Scemiophris' (Σκεμιoφρις), where she is credited with a reign of four years.Template:Sfn

BurialEdit

Sobekneferu's tomb has not yet been positively identified. A place called Sekhem Sobekneferu is mentioned on a papyrus found at Harageh which may be the name of her pyramid.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn On a funerary stela from Abydos, now in Marseille, there is mention of a storeroom administrator of Sobekneferu named Heby. The stela dates to the 13th Dynasty and attests to an ongoing funerary cult.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The Northern Mazghuna pyramid is assumed to be her monument. There is, however, no clear evidence to confirm this assignmentTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and the pyramid may date to a period well after the end of the Twelfth Dynasty.Template:Sfn Only its substructure was completed; construction of the superstructure and wider temple complex was never begun. The passages of the substructure had a complex plan. A stairway descended south from the east side of the pyramid leading to a square chamber which connected to the next sloping passage leading west to a portcullis. The portcullis consisted of a Template:Convert quartzite block intended to slide into and block the passage. Beyond the passage wound through several more turns and a second smaller portcullis before terminating at the antechamber. South of this lay the burial chamber which was almost entirely occupied by a quartzite monolith which acted as the vessel for a sarcophagus. In a deep recess lay a quartzite lid which was to be slid into place over the coffin and then locked into place by a stone slab blocking it. The builders had all exposed surfaces painted red and added lines of black paint. A causeway leading to the pyramid was built of mudbrick, which must have been used by the workers. Though the burial place had been constructed, no burial was interred at the site.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

See alsoEdit

NotesEdit

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ReferencesEdit

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BibliographyEdit

General sourcesEdit

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Royal titularyEdit

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