Ashayet

Last updated
Ashayet
King's Beloved Wife
King's Sole Ornament
Priestess of Hathor
Queen Ashit relief.jpg
Relief of Ashayet from her limestone sarcophagus
Burial
Tomb DBXI.17, Mortuary temple of Menutuhotep II
Spouse Mentuhotep II
Egyptian name
Ashayet
Ashayet		AshayetAshayetAshayetAshayetAshayet
Dynasty Eleventh of Egypt

Ashayet or Ashait was an ancient Egyptian queen consort, a wife of Mentuhotep II in the 11th Dynasty. Her tomb (DBXI.17) and small decorated chapel were found in Mentuhotep II's Deir el-Bahari temple complex. [1] The shrine and burial of Ashayet was found along with the tombs of four other women in their twenties, Henhenet, Kawit, Kemsit, Sadeh, and a young girl, Mayet. [2] However, it is likely that there were three other additional shrines that were destroyed in the expansions of Mentuhotep II's burial complex. [2] [3] The nine shrines were built in the First Intermediate Period, prior to Mentuhotep II's reunification of Egypt. [2] [3] She and three other women of the six bore queenly titles, and most of them were Priestesses of Hathor. [1] The location of their burial is significant to their titles as Priestesses of Hathor as the cliffs of Deir el-Bahri were sacred to Hathor from the Old Kingdom onwards. [2]

Her titles were: King's Beloved Wife (ḥmt-nỉswt mrỉỉ.t=f ), [4] King's Sole Ornament (ẖkr.t-nỉswt wˁtỉ.t), Priestess of Hathor (ḥm.t-nṯr ḥwt-ḥrw), Priestess of Hathor, great of ka s, foremost in her places (ḥm.t-nṯr ḥwt-ḥrw wr.t m [k3.w]=s ḫntỉ.t m swt=s), Priestess of Hathor, great of kas, foremost in her places, Lady of Dendera (ḥm.t-nṯr ḥwt-ḥrw nb.t ỉwn.t wr.t k3.w=s ḫntỉ.t m swt=s). [5]

Ashayet's stone sarcophagus (JE 47267) contained a wooden coffin (JE 47355) and a wooden statue was also located in the tomb; they are now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. [1] [6] [7] Her stone sarcophagus is particularly well known for the exterior relief and painted interior. The painted interior was copied as tempera on paper facsimiles by Charles K. Wilkinson in Gurna in 1926. [2] The facsimiles are now found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, but were never published. [2] In the interior decoration of two Medjay women, Federtyt and Mekhenet, are depicted and named as part of Ashayet's household. Depictions of her three female scribes were named and depicted in same publisher. Liszka interprets this as this elite woman was in charge of her own household and choices of commissioned art for her depiction of afterlife. [2] It has been posited that Ashayet herself was a Nubian elite woman living as queen in Egypt. [2]

Facsimiles of Aashyt's sarcophagus

Sources

  1. 1 2 3 Dodson, Aidan, Hilton, Dyan. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. ISBN   0-500-05128-3 (2004), p.87-88
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Liszka, Kate (2018-10-08). "Discerning Ancient Identity: The Case of Aashyet's Sarcophagus (JE 47267)" . Journal of Egyptian History. 11 (1–2): 185–207. doi:10.1163/18741665-12340047. ISSN   1874-1657. S2CID   240026775.
  3. 1 2 Arnold, Dieter (1979). The temple of Mentuhotep at Deir El-Bahari. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN   0-87099-163-9. OCLC   611731588.
  4. ↑ Grajetzki, Wolfram. Ancient Egyptian Queens: A Hieroglyphic Dictionary. London: Golden House Publications. ISBN   0-9547218-9-6 (2005), p.55
  5. ↑ Grajetzki, op.cit., p.27
  6. ↑ Grajetzki, op.cit., p.28
  7. ↑ Backes, Burkhard (2020). Sarg und Sarkophag der Aaschyt (Kairo JE 47355 und 47267) Teil 1. Vol. 1. Ahmed Amin, Sameh Abdel Mohsen. Wiesbaden. ISBN   978-3-447-11307-6. OCLC   1164652896.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.