Ahmose Meritamun II.

Ahmose Meritamun II in hieroglyphics
Ahmose Meritamun (Ah mose merit Amun) ( Jˁḥ ms mrjt Jmn ) The moon-born, loved by Amun
Fragment of a colossal bust in the British Museum

Ahmose Meritamun II. , Also Ahmes-Merit-Amun or just Meritamun , was the ancient Egyptian queen and sister-wife of the king ( pharaoh ) Amenophis I in the 18th dynasty .

Little is known about the daughter of King Ahmose I and his " Great Royal Wife " Ahmose Nefertari . From her mother she inherited the title of " Amun's wife of God ". Her other titles were among others "King's Daughter" ( S3t-nswt - Sat-nisut), "Sister of the King" ( Snt-nswt - Senet-nisut), "Mistress of the two countries" ( Nbt-t3wj - Nebet-taui) and " Wife of God" ( Ḥmt-ntr - Hemet-netjer).

Ahmose Meritamun died very young and so her mother Ahmose Nefertari took the position of "Royal Wife" at the side of her son Amenophis I again after her death. The marriage of Ahmose Meritamun and her brother Amenhotep I had remained childless and Amenhotep I apparently did not remarry after her death.

The mummy of Ahmose Meritamun was found in grave TT358 in Deir el-Bahri in West Thebes. The mummy, surrounded by cardboard, lay in two coffins and was verifiably rewrapped at the time of the 21st Dynasty . Examination of the mummy revealed that despite her young age, Queen Ahmose Meritamun suffered from arthritis and had a crooked spine.

As part of the so-called "Horus Project", the mummy of Ahmose Meritamun was one of a total of 52 mummies that were scanned using computer tomography . It was found that, like 44 other mummies examined, she also suffered from severe arteriosclerosis . According to the result, hardly a vein was found that did not show any calcification. Since the risks considered today such as smoking, little exercise and a diet high in cholesterol can be ruled out, genetic predispositions or parasitic circumstances are assumed for this disease . The investigation also revealed an age at death of around 40 years.

Both her mummy and her Rishi coffin are now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo . The design of the anthropoid cedar made of cedar is very similar to that of her mother Ahmose Nefertari, who was also provided with a feather pattern ( rischi ).

See also

• Ahmose Meritamun I.
• Ahmosides

literature

• Aidan Dodson , Dyan Hilton: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, London 2004, ISBN 0-500-05128-3 , pp. 127, 129.
• Joyce Tyldesley : The Queens of Ancient Egypt. From the early dynasties to the death of Cleopatra. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-7338-0358-2 , p. 91.
• Mohamed Saleh, Hourig Sourouzian, Jürgen Liepe: The main works in the Egyptian Museum Cairo: Official catalog. Section: Anthropoid coffin of Ahmes-Merit-Amun. von Zabern, Mainz 1986, ISBN 3-8053-0640-7 , p. 127.

Web links

• Coffin of Ahmose Meritamun in the British Museum

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Süddeutsche.de: Ancient health problems - mummies with calcified blood vessels , May 18, 2011