Few knew before Egypt's most famous Pharaoh Tut had two female Pharaohs reigning for a while

Many archaeological studies have demonstrated that before Tutankhamun - King Tut, Egypt's most famous pharaoh, was crowned, there was a "mysterious queen" who ruled the country.

The name of the "mysterious queen" is Neferneferuaten Ankhkheperure. However, her true identity is still controversial in archeology. One of the current controversial theories is that the mysterious queen is none other than King Tut's two sisters.

Yes, not one, but two sisters. A king, but two people in power.

The picture is said to be Queen Neferneferuaten Ankhkheperure.

Researcher Valérie Angenot, a professor of history and expert on semiotics at the University of Quebec in Montreal (Canada), is the one who made this hypothesis. It goes against previous assumptions that the " mysterious queen" was none other than Nefertiti, the official wife of King Akhenaten (King Tut's father) and King Tut's stepmother.

The study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, held from April 12 to 14 in Alexandria, Virginia.

The complex genealogy of King Tut's family and the radical transmission plan of the Prophet Akhenaten

King Tut (1341-1323 BC) became a major public concern since Howard Carter, an English archaeologist unearthed his grave in 1922. But the genealogy of this pharaoh genealogy really complicated, starting with his father, pharaoh Akhenaten .

Pharaoh Akhenaten.

For nearly 17 years in office (1353-1335 BC) of Akhenaten, the plague raged Egypt. There were three princesses who died during that time, probably due to the disease."I believe that this loss caused him to formulate a plan to prepare for the throne," Angenot said. "He tried to arrange for you to be able to succeed whenever someone dies."

Things start to get troublesome from here.

Akhenaten married his oldest daughter, Meritaten. Later, he arranged for his second oldest daughter, Ankhesenpaaten, to marry Tut. Thus, when Tut becomes emperor, Ankhesenpaaten will become queen. In this way, the royal lineage will be most thoroughly preserved.

"But, there is another little princess: Neferneferuaten Tasherit, " Angenot said. "When all her other siblings died, she was only seven years old. She could not become a queen because she could not become pregnant, and could not maintain the royal blood. And I think this was when the prince died. He intended to turn her into a king instead of a queen. He would pass the pharaoh to Neferneferuaten. " His children died too much, while Tut was too young to succeed.

Akhenaten died and passed the pharaoh to Neferneferuaten when she was 12 years old.His wife, and the daughter of King Akhenaten and Neferneferuaten's sister, became the queen of his own sister .

However, Meritaten doesn't seem to be in the Queen for too long. Angenot said: "It seems that after only one year, Meritaten was crowned as a pharaoh. Egypt is now ruled by two female pharaohs instead of one pharaoh and one queen from the traditional point of view."

The mysterious queen

At least 50 years ago, scientists knew of a queen who ruled Egypt immediately after King Akhenaten. They studied Tut's tomb thoroughly and found that it was originally built for women, such as on funeral items with the names of women.

Many Egyptians believe that this mysterious woman is Nefertiti. In order to become a pharaoh, she had to change her name completely. There are also those who believe that the female pharaoh is Meritaten, the princess who once married her father. And Angenot found the mysterious queen to be the youngest princess. More reasonable than the other two hypotheses because the princess's relative name coincides with the name of the mysterious queen: Neferneferuaten Tasherit and Neferneferuaten Ankhkheperure.

It is not pure speculation. The name of an Egyptian emperor usually includes a real name."I always suspected that Nefertiti and Meritaten were not" mysterious queens ", because they had no" Neferneferuaten "in their real names," Angenot said.

"The only candidate with this name is Princess Neferneferuaten" - Angenot noted. "The problem is that she is the youngest princess alive, so everyone thinks that she cannot be prioritized over her brothers and sisters and sit on the throne".

In addition, she found some sculptures of the unidentified royal leaders. Previously, these works were supposed to sculpt Akhenaten and Nefertiti, but they were actually of the young princess.

The woman whose gesture raised her chin was Neferneferuaten, the other one was Meritaten.

Furthermore, an analysis of the semiotic symbols of Egyptian body language published a picture of Akhenaten and Nefertiti's daughters, showing that Princess Neferneferuaten had a gesture to caress the other's chin. This gesture was also found in a stele carved with images of two royal women.

Although this tablet has not been completed and does not know the identity of the two women in beer, it can be seen that it also carries the royal symbols depicting pharaoh. This led Angenot to hypothesize that the woman with a gesture to lift the chin in the stele was Neferneferuaten, the other being Meritaten.

When Neferneferuaten began to rule, Meritaten's older sister joined her in running the kingdom. Neferneferuaten and Meritaten crowned with a common imperial.

Having a female pharaoh is not unprecedented. Earlier Egypt had two queens, Hatshepsut and Sobekneferu.

The ruling pharaoh after King Tut had apparently failed to accept the co-rule by the two queens and did not want the same thing to happen later, destroying the traces of the sisters' rule."That's why we have very little information, because everything was destroyed after they died," Angenot explained.

Angenot also offers another clue against the fact that Nefertiti is the mysterious female pharaoh who is not of royal blood (ie she was not the pharaoh's daughter or sister like two women before). King Hatshepsut and Sobekneferu), she is simply the king's wife.

The debate has not yet ended

Angenot described his research at the conference, and is currently presenting the research in full before sending it to an accredited scientific journal. Many Egyptologists look forward to her work being published for more specific information about this strange hypothesis.

"I think she did very well, the carvings have many similarities and they all belong to a princess that we don't know about" - Stephen Harvey, an Egyptian learner also attended the association. conference that Angenot presented views and shared. "I am very much looking forward to her argument about the two queen's co-rule hypothesis, because that's something never seen during 3,000 years of Egyptian civilization."

Some other scientists dismiss Angenot's point of view. Aidan Dodson, professor of Egyptian studies at Bristol University in the UK, commented: "This is really hard to believe, I mean it is hard to believe."

"Stroking the chin" is a common gesture in the 18th dynasty princesses, but it is really risky to assume that this gesture engraved on beer is the proof that Egypt was once ruled by two queens at the same time, Dodson shared. Dodson is working on a book arguing that Nefertiti is the one who is likely to be the mysterious female pharaoh.

He continued to analyze, the aforementioned stela had three spaces to carve the royal name. This layout is suitable for carving a pharaoh's name (consisting of two parts) and a queen (part). Thus, if the other beer engraved two pharaohs, there must be four names engraved rather than three.

In order to explain Dodson's refusal, Angenot stated that it was possible that these three names were used to engrave "Neferneferuaten Ankhkheperure Meritaten" because she thought that the sisters Neferneferuaten and Meritaten shared a sign. However, there is no clue that any of the same things happened in Egypt before and after, Dodson said.

The stela has three spaces to engrave the royal name frame.

Dodson added that, since becoming Akhenaten's wife, Neferneferuaten "had been a part of Nefertiti's name early on," so her name was not changed completely after her husband's name was named after the husband's death.

Facing the debate, Stephen Harvey said Angenot's research can only be judged properly when it is fully published."I really want to know more details. I want to judge fairly," he said.

Will the hypothesis of the famous Nefertiti queen be defeated after nearly 50 years of existence?