Nitocris I (alt. Nitiqret, Nitokris I) (died 585 BC) served as the heir to, and then, as the

Divine Adoratrice of Amun The Divine Adoratrice of Amun ( Egyptian: '' dwꜣt nṯr n jmn'') was a second title – after God's Wife of Amun – created for the chief priestess of the ancient Egyptian deity Amun. During the first millennium BCE, when the holder of this ...

God's Wife of Amun God's Wife of Amun (Egyptian: ''ḥm.t nṯr n ỉmn'') was the highest-ranking priestess of the Amun cult, an important religious institution in ancient Egypt. The cult was centered in Thebes in Upper Egypt during the Twenty-fifth and Twenty ...

for a period of more than seventy years, between 655 BC and 585 BC.Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson (2004), p.247

Biography

She was the daughter of the 26th Dynasty pharaoh,

Psamtik I Wahibre Psamtik I ( Ancient Egyptian: ) was the first pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the Saite period, ruling from the city of Sais in the Nile delta between 664–610 BC. He was installed by Ashurbanipal of the Neo-Assyrian Empire ...

, by his queen

Mehytenweskhet Mehytenweskhet (Mehtenweskhet) was the daughter of the High Priest of Re Harsiese, and the Great Royal Wife of Psamtik I. She dates to the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt.Tyldesley, Joyce. Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt. Thames & Hudson. 2006. B ...

. Early in his reign, in March 656 BC, Psamtik I dispatched a powerful naval fleet to Thebes and compelled the then serving

Shepenupet II Shepenupet II (alt. Shepenwepet II, prenomen: ''Henutneferumut Irietre'') was an ancient Egyptian princess of the 25th Dynasty who served as the high priestess, the Divine Adoratrice of Amun, from around 700 BC to 650 BC. She was the daughter of ...

, a daughter of

Piye Piye (once transliterated as Pankhy or Piankhi; d. 714 BC) was an ancient Kushite king and founder of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt, who ruled Egypt from 744–714 BC. He ruled from the city of Napata, located deep in Nubia, modern-day Sudan. ...

, to adopt Nitocris as her heir to this powerful office. The ceremony of the adoption and elevation of Nitocris I is commemorated in the well known ''

Adoption Stela Nitocris I (alt. Nitiqret, Nitokris I) (died 585 BC) served as the heir to, and then, as the Divine Adoratrice of Amun or God's Wife of Amun for a period of more than seventy years, between 655 BC and 585 BC.Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Comple ...

''. It is not known at what date she assumed the office of Divine Adoratrice of Amun, but she served in this position until Year 4 of

Apries Apries ( grc, Ἁπρίης) is the name by which Herodotus (ii. 161) and Diodorus (i. 68) designate Wahibre Haaibre, a pharaoh of Egypt (589 BC570 BC), the fourth king (counting from Psamtik I) of the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt. He was equ ...

in 585 BC. Prior to her career in this office, the Assyrians had invaded Egypt in 671 BC, sacked Thebes, and robbed its temples of their many treasures. The reunification of Egypt by her father was facilitated by her rise. When she was in her eighties, she adopted her great-niece

Ankhnesneferibre Ankhnesneferibre was an ancient Egyptian princess and priestess during the 26th Dynasty, daughter of pharaoh Psamtik II and his queen Takhuit. She held the positions of Divine Adoratrice of Amun and later God's Wife of Amun between 595 and 525 ...

, the daughter of

Psamtik II Psamtik II ( Ancient Egyptian: , pronounced ), known by the Graeco-Romans as Psammetichus or Psammeticus, was a king of the Saite-based Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt (595 BC – 589 BC). His prenomen, Nefer-Ib-Re, means "Beautiful s theHeart ...

, continuing the succession in her family line. During her tenure, she was attested by several building works around

Karnak The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Construct ...

Luxor Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...

, and Abydos. She was buried in the grounds of Medinet Habu, in a tomb chapel that "she shared with her natural mother and adoptive grandmother." Her sarcophagus was reused in a Ptolemaic tomb at Deir el-Medina, and today, is located in the

Cairo Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display ...

The Adoption Stela

stela A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...

often referred to as the "Adoption Stela", was unearthed in 1897 by

Georges Legrain Georges Albert Legrain (4 October 1865, in Paris – 22 August 1917, in Luxor) was a French Egyptologist. Life and work From 1883 to 1890 Legrain was a student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, but he also studied Egyptology at that time, ...

at Karnak and moved to the Cairo Museum. It is made from red granite and measures roughly in height and in width., §§ 935–937 The beginning of the inscription is lost, but the remainder continues with an inscription relating that Pharaoh Psamtik I is reporting to the court his intention to give his daughter to

Amun Amun (; also ''Amon'', ''Ammon'', ''Amen''; egy, jmn, reconstructed as (Old Egyptian and early Middle Egyptian) → (later Middle Egyptian) → (Late Egyptian), cop, Ⲁⲙⲟⲩⲛ, Amoun) romanized: ʾmn) was a major ancient Egyptian ...

to be a God's Wife. Psamtik acknowledged that the current God's Wife,

, daughter of pharaoh

of the

25th Dynasty The Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXV, alternatively 25th Dynasty or Dynasty 25), also known as the Nubian Dynasty, the Kushite Empire, the Black Pharaohs, or the Napatans, after their capital Napata, was the last dynasty of th ...

, already had an heir in

Taharqa Taharqa, also spelled Taharka or Taharqo (Egyptian: 𓇿𓉔𓃭𓈎 ''tꜣ-h-rw-k'', Akkadian: ''Tar-qu-u2'', , Manetho's ''Tarakos'', Strabo's ''Tearco''), was a pharaoh of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt and qore (king) of the Kingdom of ...

's daughter

Amenirdis II The ancient Nubian princess Amenirdis II, daughter of the Kushite pharaoh Taharqa of the 25th Dynasty, was adopted by Shepenupet II, daughter of Piye, to become Divine Adoratrice of Amun from around 650 BC to 640 BC during the 26th Dynasty. Ameni ...

, who was officiating as

. Psamtik intended to compel Shepenupet to adopt Nitocris as her heir, thus supplanting Amenirdis II in the succession. The court praised the pharaoh's decision and, in his regnal “year 9, first month of the first season, day 28” (a date identified with March 2, 656 BC), p. 438-439 Nitocris departed from

Sais Sais ( grc, Σάϊς, cop, Ⲥⲁⲓ) was an ancient Egyptian city in the Western Nile Delta on the Canopic branch of the Nile,Mish, Frederick C., Editor in Chief. "Saïs." '' Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary''. 9th ed. Springfiel ...

to Thebes on a royal

flotilla A flotilla (from Spanish, meaning a small ''flota'' (fleet) of ships), or naval flotilla, is a formation of small warships that may be part of a larger fleet. Composition A flotilla is usually composed of a homogeneous group of the same class ...

led by the admiral and

nomarch A nomarch ( grc, νομάρχης, egy, ḥrj tp ꜥꜣ Great Chief) was a provincial governor in ancient Egypt; the country was divided into 42 provinces, called nomes (singular , plural ). A nomarch was the government official responsib ...

Herakleopolis Magna Heracleopolis Magna ( grc-gre, Μεγάλη Ἡρακλέους πόλις, ''Megálē Herakléous pólis'') and Heracleopolis (, ''Herakleópolis'') and Herakleoupolis (), is the Roman name of the capital of the 20th nome of ancient Upper Eg ...

, Sematawytefnakht. After sixteen days the flotilla reached Thebes, whose population acclaimed the arrival of the princess. Both Shepenupet II and Amenirdis II met Nitocris. She was adopted formally and both agreed to convey their properties to her (and, indirectly, to Psamtik I). Then the stela reports a very detailed list with all the daily donations (mainly food) to Nitocris from several officials such as the mayor of Thebes,

Mentuemhat Mentuemhat or Montuemhat (c. 700 BCE – c. 650 BCE) was a rich and powerful Theban official from ancient Egypt who lived during the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt and Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt. He was the Fourth Priest of Amun in Thebes. ...

, and his family, from the priesthood of Amun that at this time was led by the

High Priest of Amun The High Priest of Amun or First Prophet of Amun ('' ḥm nṯr tpj n jmn'') was the highest-ranking priest in the priesthood of the ancient Egyptian god Amun. The first high priests of Amun appear in the New Kingdom of Egypt, at the beginning ...

, Harkhebi, as well as from the king and many temples of the whole Land.Breasted, §§ 947 ff

Importance

Shepenupet II and Amenirdis II were the last vestiges of the vanished 25th Dynasty, yet they held this highest position of power in the south and practically controlled the entirety of

Upper Egypt Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south. In ancient ...

. Psamtik I chose not to remove the God's Wife in charge forcefully – an action that would be unpopular – but to make her adopt his daughter as her successor, thus ensuring the future control of Upper Egypt, as well as receiving a considerable number of properties and other goods: beyond the “facade” of the adoption of Nitocris, the stela ''de facto'' reports the reunification of

Upper and Lower Egypt In Egyptian history, the Upper and Lower Egypt period (also known as The Two Lands) was the final stage of prehistoric Egypt and directly preceded the unification of the realm. The conception of Egypt as the Two Lands was an example of the duali ...

under the aegis of Psamtik., p. 354

Ancestry

References

External links