| Djeseretnebti in hieroglyphs | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Djeseret-ankh-Nebti Ḏsr.t-ˁnḫ-Nb.tj | |||||||
Djeseretnebti (or Djeseret-Ankh-Nebti) is possibly the name of an ancient Egyptian queen. Since this name appears without any queen‘s title, Egyptologists dispute the true meaning and reading of this name.
Evidence
The name Djeseret-Nebti or Djeseret-Ankh-Nebti appears on ivory cloth labels, found in the underground galleries beneath the pyramid of the 3rd Dynasty king (pharaoh) Sekhemkhet at Saqqara. It is written with the common nebti-crest, but not with any personal title that could identify whether the person was a member of Egyptian royalty or that it was even a name. Egyptologists like Toby Wilkinson and Zakaria Goneim read the inscription as Djeser-Ti and identify it with the cartouche-name of the pharaoh Djeser Teti of the Abydos King List.
Wolfgang Helck, Peter Kaplony and Jean-Pierre Pätznik instead read the name as djeseret-ankh-nebti (‘the noble one who lives for the two ladies’) and see it as the name of a wife of king Sekhemkhet. They point to several clay seals found at Elephantine, which show Sekhemkhet's horus name alternating with the nebty name Hetep-Ren and postulate that this could be the original birth name of Sekhemkhet.
References
- ^ Wolfgang Helck: Untersuchungen zur Thinitenzeit. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1987, ISBN 3-447-02677-4, pp 108, 117.
- Zakaria Goneim: Horus Sekhemkhet. P. 21 et seq.; see also Toby A. Wilkinson: Early dynastic Egypt. P. 98 et seq.
- ^ Toby Wilkinson: Early Dynastic Egypt. Routledge, London/New York 1999, ISBN 0-415-18633-1, p 98.
- Peter Kaplony: Die Inschriften der Ägyptischen Frühzeit. 1. Band, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1963, pp 538–540.
