Ankhesenpaaten Tasherit (or Ankhesenpaaten-ta-sherit, “Ankhesenpaaten the Younger”) was an ancient Egyptian princess of the 18th Dynasty. Ankhesenpaaten Tasherit and another princess,

Meritaten Tasherit Meritaten Tasherit, which means ''Meritaten the Younger'' was an ancient Egyptian princess of the 18th Dynasty. She is likely to have been the daughter of Meritaten, eldest daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Who her father was remains a matter of de ...

are two princesses who appear in scenes dating to the later part of the reign of

Akhenaten Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dy ...

. The titles of at least one of the princess is of the form " ..-taherit, born of .. born of the King's Great Wife .. The inscription is damaged and the name of the mother and grandmother of the princesses has not been preserved.Dodson, Aidan, Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb, and the Egyptian Counter-Reformation. The American University in Cairo Press. 2009, Tyldesley, Joyce. Nefertiti: Egypt's Sun Queen. Penguin. 1998. , pp 168, 173 Ankhesenpaaten Tasherit has been known to archaeologists since 1938, when a

talatat Talatat are limestone blocks of standardized size (c. 27 by 27 by 54 cm, corresponding to by by 1 ancient Egyptian cubits) used during the 18th Dynasty reign of the Pharaoh Akhenaten in the building of the Aton temples at Karnak and Akheta ...

block with her picture and name was found in

Hermopolis Hermopolis ( grc, Ἑρμούπολις ''Hermoúpolis'' "the City of Hermes", also ''Hermopolis Magna'', ''Hermoû pólis megálẽ'', egy, ḫmnw , Egyptological pronunciation: "Khemenu"; cop, Ϣⲙⲟⲩⲛ ''Shmun''; ar, الأشموني ...

Proposed parents

Several different sets of parents have been proposed for Ankhesenpaaten Tasherit (as well as Meritaten Tasherit).

Ankhesenpaaten and Akhenaten

She is most commonly held to have been the daughter of

Ankhesenpaaten Ankhesenamun (, "Her Life Is of Amun"; c. 1348 or c. 1342 – after 1322 BC) was a queen who lived during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt as the pharaoh Akhenaten's daughter and subsequently became the Great Royal Wife of pharaoh Tutankhamun. Born An ...

(a daughter of Pharaoh

) and Akhenaten himself. The title of the princess is thought to have been "Ankhesenpaaten-tasherit, born of Ankhesenpaaten, born of the King's Great Wife

Nefertiti Neferneferuaten Nefertiti () ( – c. 1330 BC) was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a radical change in national religious policy, in whic ...

". If we assume that Ankhesenpaaten Tasherit was the daughter of Ankhesenpaaten and Akhenaten, she must have been born towards the very end of Akhenaten's reign. Since Ankhesenpaaten was born around the 5th year of her father's reign, the earliest year she could have had a child was around Year 16 of his reign.

Kiya and Akhenaten

Since both Ankhesenpaaten Tasherit and another princess,

appear only in texts that once mentioned Akhenaten's second wife

Kiya Kiya was one of the wives of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Little is known about her, and her actions and roles are poorly documented in the historical record, in contrast to those of Akhenaten's ‘Great royal wife’, Nefertiti. Her unusual n ...

, it is also possible that they were children of Akhenaten and Kiya, or that they were fictional, replacing the name of Kiya's daughter, who might have been

Beketaten Beketaten ( egy, bꜣk.t-itn)(14th century BCE) was an ancient Egyptian princess of the 18th Dynasty. Beketaten is considered to be the youngest daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Tiye, thus the sister of Pharaoh Akhena ...

, more commonly thought to be

Tiye Tiye (c. 1398 BC – 1338 BC, also spelled Tye, Taia, Tiy and Tiyi) was the daughter of Yuya and Thuya. She became the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III. She was the mother of Akhenaten and grandmother of Tutankhamun. I ...

's child.Kramer, "Enigmatic Kiya" in A. K. Eyma ed., ''A Delta-man in Yebu'',

uPublish.com Universal Publishers is the parent publishing company of three non-fiction book imprints specializing in nonfiction, how-to, technical and academic titles (Universal-Publishers, BrownWalker Press & Dissertation.com). It originally began in 1997 as ...

2003, , p.54

Meritaten and Smenkhare

Dodson proposed Ankhesenpaaten Tasherit was a daughter of the young royal couple

Meritaten Meritaten, also spelled Merytaten, Meritaton or Meryetaten ( egy, mrii.t-itn) (14th century BC), was an ancient Egyptian royal woman of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Her name means "She who is beloved of Aten"; Aten being the sun-deity whom h ...

and

Smenkhare Smenkhkare (alternatively romanized ''Smenkhare'', ''Smenkare,'' or ''Smenkhkara''; meaning "'Vigorous is the Soul of Re") was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh of unknown background who lived and ruled during the Amarna Period of the 18th Dynasty. S ...

. The young princess would have been named after Meritaten's sister.

References

{{Amarna Period Navigator Princesses of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt 14th-century BC Egyptian women Akhenaten