Meritaten

Meritaten From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Meritaten Queen consort of Egypt, Great Royal Wife, King's Daughter Egypte louvre 169 buste de femme.jpg A daughter of King Akhenaten and Queen Nefertiti, perhaps the young Meritaten, later a queen - collection of the Louvre, Paris Spouse Pharaoh Smenkhkare Issue possibly Meritaten Tasherit and Ankhesenpaaten Tasherit? Full name Meritaten Dynasty 18th dynasty of Egypt Father Akhenaten Mother Nefertiti Born Thebes? Religion Ancient Egyptian religion and Atenism i t n
ra N36 t B1 Meritaten in hieroglyphs Meritaten also spelled Merytaten or Meryetaten (14th century BC) was an ancient Egyptian queen of the eighteenth dynasty, who held the position of Great Royal Wife to Pharaoh Smenkhkare, who may have been a brother or son of Akhenaten. Her name means "She who is beloved of Aten"; Aten being the sun-god her father worshipped; Meritaten also may have served as pharaoh in her own right under the name, Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten.[1]

Family[edit]

Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and their children

Pharaoh Akhenaten (center) and his family adoring the Aten solar disk. The next figure leftmost is Meritaten, the daughter of Akhenaten, adorned in a double-feather crown. Meritaten was the first of six daughters born to Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Great Royal Wife, Nefertiti. Her sisters are Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten Tasherit, Neferneferure, and Setepenre.[2] She is known to have later married Pharaoh Smenkhare. There are no known children, but the young girls named Meritaten-tasherit and Ankhesenpaaten-tasherit are sometimes conjectured to be the daughters of Meritaten and Smenkhare.[1]

Biography[edit] She was born early in her father's reign, before the royal family moved to the new capital established by her father, Akhetaten. She was shown beside her mother in reliefs carved into the Hut-Benben, a temple devoted exclusively to Nefertiti. She also appears—along with her parents and younger sister Meketaten;on the boundary stelae designating the boundaries of the new capital.[1]

During Akhenaten's reign she was the most frequently depicted and mentioned of the six daughters. Her figure appears on paintings in temples, tombs, and private chapels. She is shown not only on the pictures showing the family life of the pharaoh, which were typical of the Amarna Period, but on official ceremonies too. She also is mentioned in diplomatic letters, by the name Mayati.[1]

Meritaten's titles include Great Royal Wife, which can indicate either marriage to her father or to Akhenaten's co-ruler Smenkhkare, whom some believe was her (half-)uncle or half-brother, although a simpler explanation for the title may be that Meritaten simply assumed her mother's duties and office of "Great Royal Wife".

Meritaten's name seems to replace that of another royal lady in several places, among them in the Northern Palace and in the Maru-Aten. This had been misinterpreted as evidence of Nefertiti's disgrace and banishment from the royal court, but more recently the erased inscriptions turned out to be the name of Kiya, one of Akhenaten's secondary wives, disproving that interpretation.[1]

According to some scholars such as J.P. Allen, Ankhkheperure Smenkhkare ruled together with Meritaten, but in the year following Akhenaten's death Smenkhkare himself died. These Egyptologists suggest that Meritaten was the 'king's daughter' Akenkeres who is recorded in Manetho's Epitome to have assumed the throne for herself as the female king Neferneferuaten. Neferneferuaten is assigned a reign of 2 years and 1 month and is placed in Manetho's account as the immediate predecessor of Rathothis, who is believed to be Tutankhamun.

References[edit] ^ Jump up to: a b c d e J. Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt, 2006, Thames & Hudson, pg 136-137 Jump up ^ Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, 2004, ISBN 0-500-05128-3, p.142-157 Joyce Tyldesley: Nefertiti – Egypt's Sun Queen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritaten

According to the "Scotichronicon", written around 1435 AD by Walter Bower, the Abbot of Inchcolm Abbey in Scotland: "In ancient times, Scota, the daughter of pharaoh, left Egypt with her husband Gaythelos by name and a large following. For they had heard of the disasters which were going to come upon Egypt, and so through the instructions of the gods they fled from certain plagues that were to come. They took to the sea, entrusting themselves to the guidance of the gods"… "After sailing for many days over the sea with troubled minds, they were finally glad to put their boats in at a certain shore because of bad weather." Bower went on the relate that the "certain shore" was in the north of Britain, and that Scota and Gaythelos and their followers eventually settled in what is now Scotland for a while, until being forced to flee to Ireland. The original source for Bower's account of Scota and Gaythelos may have been the "World Chronicle" compiled by the Roman writer Eusebius of Caesarea around 320 AD, based upon the earlier "History of Egypt" compiled by the Greek writer Euhemerus around 300 BC.