Courage nesut

Mut-nesut in hieroglyphics
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Mut-nesut (in transcription: Mw.t-nswt ), translated as “mother of the king”, was the title of powerful women who belonged to the royal house and were the mother of a currently ruling king ( Pharaoh ) in early and ancient Egypt .

supporting documents

The title Mut-nesut can be traced in its simplest form for the first time in the 1st Dynasty under Queen Meritneith on clay seals from her grave near Abydos and in the grave of her husband, King Den, laid out there . The title seems to have been popular at that time.

Spellings

The conventional spelling of the title consisted of the vulture hieroglyph (Egypt. Mw.t , for "mother") and the royal rush (Egypt. Nswt , for "king"). In the 3rd Dynasty two variants of the title appear for the first time: "Mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt" (Egypt. Mw.t-nswt-bjtj ) and "Mother of the King's Children" (Egypt. Mw.t msw-nswt ). The latter title is rarely attested. The names of the queens Chenethapi and Batiires are preserved on the famous Palermostein . Interestingly, the queen's title only consists of the vulture symbol.

The unusual variant Mw.t-nswtwj-bjtwj appears for the queens Chentkaus I and Chentkaus II from the 4th and 5th dynasty , which can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, she can mean "mother of two kings of Upper and Lower Egypt," which means that two of her sons ascended the royal throne. Alternatively, the reading as “King of Upper and Lower Egypt and mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt ” is possible, according to which these queens had ruled themselves. The last interpretation is supported by the construction of their tombs.

From the 18th dynasty the title “Great King Mother” ( Mw.t-nswt-wrt - Mut-nesut-weret) is used.

Further forms of the title are known, especially from private graves of later epochs . Their actual readings are problematic due to their mostly unusual graphics .

function

The title of "mother of the king" was only awarded when the son ascended the throne. It was also preserved posthumously . However, it remains unclear whether it could only be given to the birth mother, since it is known of later pharaohs that they were conceived by concubines . The title raised the wearer to a special social and family position, which from then on set her apart from the other concubines and main wives of the king: During her lifetime she held the highest rank and even stood above the king's main wife. With the award of the royal mother's title, the bearer received further titles of power and honor , which granted her extraordinary privileges . For example, Queen Meritneith (1st Dynasty) was awarded a royal tomb with its own cult area and royal steles .

The unique position of the king's mother was underlined by her title "Mother of God" (Egypt. Mw.t nṯr - mut-netjer), d. H. of the ruling king, who has been documented since the Old Kingdom. In iconography she wears the vulture hood of the Nechbet , which she adapts to the mother goddesses Hathor , Mut or Isis . In the New Kingdom she was also considered the “wife of God” of the kingdom god Amun-Re , with whom she fathered her son, Horus on earth.

The main criterion for the award of the royal mother title may have been, among other things, that the bearer was the wife of the previous king and that her husband survived the end of office. In many cases, the king's mother actually bore the title of “consort of the king” ( ḥm.t nsw.t - Hemet-nisut ). This confirms the special role of a royal mother as a genealogical link in the succession to the throne. Conversely, this means that a newly crowned ruler was legitimized over motherhood , since ideally only the respective eldest son of the previous king inherited the throne.

However, cases are also known in which the bearers of the queen's title were neither royal wives themselves nor of royal descent, so that no family relationship between the newly crowned ruler and his predecessor in office can be proven. This is the case for example with Queen Hetepheres I. before. In her titulatures that of a king's wife is missing. Queen Chentkaus I was not married to a ruler either, but gave birth to a son who in turn became king: Sheepseskaf , presumably the last ruler of the 4th dynasty. For this reason she was entitled to the title of "Mother of the King".

Even in the New Kingdom , the consanguinity with the predecessor was not necessarily decisive in the succession to the throne. As soon as the new king appeared on the "throne of Horus of the living", be it in his capacity as the eldest son of the predecessor ( Amenophis I ) or after a co-regency ( Amenhotep II ), by usurpation ( haremhab ) or by appointment by the incumbent ( Ramses I. ), he was ex officio as the "son of Re" and consequently as the divinely legitimized heir of the deceased ruler.

literature

Wolfgang Helck , Eberhard Otto : Small Lexicon of Egyptology. 4th revised edition. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04027-0 , p. 148.
Silke Roth: The royal mothers of ancient Egypt. From the early period to the end of the 12th Dynasty (= Egypt and Old Testament. Vol. 46). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-447-04368-7 (also dissertation, University of Mainz 1997).
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 .
Marco-Alexander Zentler: King Mother - Mother of God. On the ancient Egyptian backgrounds of the Theotókos in the Coptic Church. In: Bibel, Byzanz und Christian Orient - Festschrift for Stephen Gerö for his 65th birthday (= Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. [OLA] 187). Peeters, Leuven 2011, pp. 231-238.

Individual evidence

↑ Miroslav Verner : The pyramids. The step grave of Chentkaus I. (= rororo 60890 rororo non-fiction book ). Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek 1999, ISBN 3-499-60890-1 , pp. 291-296.

[1] Miroslav Verner : The pyramids. The step grave of Chentkaus I. (= rororo 60890 rororo non-fiction book ). Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek 1999, ISBN 3-499-60890-1 , pp. 291-296.