Meretneith debate revives: new study backs woman king claim

A new paper on Meretneith, a royal woman from Egypt’s First Dynasty who lived around 3000 BCE, argues that she may have ruled ancient Egypt as a king in her own right.

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For the study, researchers reworked a disputed Saqqara mud-stopper inscription that survives only in a black-and-white archive photo. They used contrast enhancement, color inversion, and vector reconstruction, and they say Meretneith’s name appears inside a royal serekh, the kingship frame usually reserved for male rulers. If that reading is right, it’s the only surviving text that could directly support Meretneith’s claim and place her among the earliest known female rulers.

Meretneith lived around 3000 BCE. She was likely King Djer’s daughter, King Djet’s wife, and King Den’s mother. Her name means “Beloved by Neith,” and her standing shows up clearly in the tombs at Saqqara and Abydos, where she’s the only First Dynasty woman with a monumental burial in a royal cemetery, along with 41 subsidiary graves.

Recent German-Austrian excavations at Abydos turned up hundreds of wine jars, some still sealed with 5,000-year-old grape seeds, along with inscriptions connecting Meretneith to institutions including the treasury.

If you follow Egyptology, you’ll want to read this one. King Den’s tomb seal still calls Meretneith “King’s Mother,” which keeps the regent reading alive, so the study works better as stronger evidence for Meretneith’s claim than as the final word in the debate.

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