Tetisheri

Tetisheri in hieroglyphics
Tetisheri (Teti scheri) Ttj šrj Teti, the little one / Teti, the younger

Tetisheri (also Teti-scheri ; † around 1540 BC) was an ancient Egyptian great royal wife and king mother in the 17th dynasty . She is considered the " ancestral mother of the Ahmosids ", a Theban ruling dynasty who ended the supremacy of the Hyksos in Egypt.

family

Tetisheri was the daughter of Tjenna and his wife Neferu. Both are named on a linen cloth that was found in the cachette of Deir el-Bahari . Tjenna bears the honorary title “Sab” there (the title “Sab” - S3b was long translated as judge in Egyptology , but was probably more of a status marker of distinguished people). Tetisheri is thus clearly of non-royal origin.

She was the mother of the Satdjehuti Satibu , as evidenced by a coffin mask fragment in the Egyptian Museum in Munich .

Other family relationships (as with almost all members of the Ahmosid clan) are not documented. She is tentatively identified as the wife of Senachtenre , although nowhere is this recorded with certainty. It can also not be completely ruled out that they may e.g. B. was the wife of the Seqenenre . However, it is more likely that she was the mother of the Seqenenre and possibly the Kamose as well . In any case, her title Queen Mother shows that her marriage resulted in a king.

She was the grandmother of Amosis, who describes her on a stele as the mother of [his] mother . The fragment of a stele with her name - without the addition " die Blessed " ( m3ˁ ḫrw ) - and that of her grandson Ahmose I shows that she still lived under him.

Further possible daughters are u. a. another Satdjehuti , if this is not identical with Satdjehuti Satibu, as well as Ahhotep I. , if this is not identical with Ahhotep II.

Regency

After the death of Senachtenre, Seqenenre and the early death of Kamose, the widowed Tetisheri, together with the also widowed Ahhotep I, presumably led the affairs of government of the successor Ahmose I, who apparently ascended the throne at the age of five. Both women are often depicted behind the king on monuments from this period. Due to the special admiration of Ahmose I after her death, she seems to have played a central role at the royal court.

Cult of the dead

In the New Kingdom, in contrast to Ahhotep I and Ahmose Nefertari , the memory of Tetisheri seemed to be forgotten. So she is z. B. is not mentioned in any Ramessid king list as the founder of the Theban necropolis. Grimm and Schoske assume that this is related to their “only” bourgeois origin. A papyrus from Abusir, on the other hand, documents a funeral foundation for her and Ahmose-Satkamose at the beginning of the 18th dynasty.

Her grandson Ahmose founded foundations for the dead for herself and her in Abydos , where a cult was dedicated to her after her death as the most important ancestor of the 18th dynasty . In the complex of the Ahmose pyramid there is a memorial chapel and the small ( cenotaph ) pyramid of the Tetisheri dedicated to it .

Ahmose's memorial stone

On the corresponding memorial stone from Abydos Tetisheri, Ahmose honored the following for their achievements:

“It is I who think of my mother's mother (Ahhotep I) and my father's mother, of the Great King Wife and Queen Mother, Tetisheri, blessed . She still has her burial chapel on the earth at Thebes and Abydos. My Majesty wishes a pyramid and a mortuary temple to be erected near my monuments in the sublime land. The lake of the mortuary temple was dug, the trees were planted and offerings made, it was enfeoffed with fields and provided with flocks. "

- Ahmose memorial stone

Statue of Tetisheri

Despite her great influence during her lifetime, only one statue has come down to us from Tetisheri, which, however, is only known from an old photograph. A statue from the British Museum's collection that was acquired in 1890 and believed to be a representation of the Tetisheri (BM 22558) is now considered a forgery. Their inscriptions were copied with errors from the other statue, which exposed the forgery. Grimm and Schoske, however, again consider the statue to be authentic, but question whether it really represents Tetisheri.

mummy

The so-called Unknown Woman B (CG61056) from the Deir el-Bahari cachette is considered a supposed mummy . The mummy was officially discovered in 1881 and was originally mistakenly identified as Ramses I by Gaston Maspero . Grafton Elliot Smith , on closer inspection in 1909, found it to be the mummy of an unknown elderly woman, and gave it the appropriate name, but dated it to the 18th Dynasty. Georges Daressy and Margaret Murray noted that some mummy ties associated with this mummy had the Tetisheri name on them. Some researchers dated the mummy to the 17th Dynasty and directly identified it as that of Tetisheri. Essential features of this mummy are the white hair, which suggests a very old age, a delicate bone structure and braids woven into the hair, which should indicate youthful hair volume. These features seem to fit well with the figure of this queen, who is known from pictures and the statue.

tomb

In addition to the cenotaph pyramid, the actual tomb of the Tetisheri is so far unknown. The Egyptologist Elizabeth Thomas suspected that the Theban grave KV41 might be considered, but so far there has been no concrete evidence for this thesis.

literature

• William Vivian Davies : The statuette of Queen Tetisheri: A reconsideration. British Museum, London 1984, ISBN 0-86159-036-8 .
• Gabriele Höber-Kamel: From the Hyksos to the New Kingdom . In: Kemet, issue 2. 2003, ISSN  0943-5972 , p. 21.
• Alfred Grimm, Sylvia Schoske: In the sign of the moon. Egypt at the beginning of the New Kingdom (=  writings from the Egyptian collection . Volume 7 ). State Collection of Egyptian Art, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-87490-691-4 .
• Daniel Polz : The beginning of the New Kingdom: On the prehistory of a turning point. de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-11-019347-7 .
• Kim Ryholt : The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period. Copenhagen 1997, ISBN 87-7289-421-0
• Hermann A. Schlögl : The old Egypt (= Beck'sche series. Bd. 2305; CH Beck knowledge). Original edition, 3rd, revised edition. Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 3-406-48005-5 .
• 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 , pp. 80-81.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alfred Grimm, Sylvia Schoske: In the sign of the moon. P. 37.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Kim Ryholt: The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period . Pp. 274-275.
3. ↑ Alfred Grimm, Sylvia Schoske: In the sign of the moon . P. 2.
4. ↑ Alfred Grimm, Sylvia Schoske: In the sign of the moon . Family tree last page.
5. ↑ According to Claude Vandersleyen, the Great King Wife, usually referred to as Ahhotep I , was the mother of Ahmose. See: L'Égypte et la vallée du Nil - Tome 2. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-13-046552-8 , pp. 198 and 219
6. ↑ Alfred Grimm, Sylvia Schoske: In the sign of the moon . P. 48.
7. ^ Hermann A. Schlögl: The ancient Egypt . P. 183.
8. ^ William Vivian Davies: The statuette of Queen Tetisheri .
9. ↑ Alfred Grimm, Sylvia Schoske: In the sign of the moon . P. 83.
10. ↑ The Royal Mummies
11. ^ The Theban Royal Mummy Project
12. ↑ Gabriele Höber-Kamel: From the Hyksos to the New Kingdom. P. 21.
13. ↑ Theban Mapping Project ( Memento of the original from May 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.