Gautseshen (her name means 'bouquet of lotuses') was an ancient Egyptian priestess, the singer of

Montu Montu was a falcon-god of war in ancient Egyptian religion, an embodiment of the conquering vitality of the pharaoh.Hart, George, ''A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses'', Routledge, 1986, . p. 126. He was particularly worshipped in Upper ...

. She lived during the

Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt The Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XXI, alternatively 21st Dynasty or Dynasty 21) is usually classified as the first Dynasty of the Ancient Egyptian Third Intermediate Period, lasting from 1077 BC to 943 BC. History After the r ...

Description

Her father was

Menkheperre Menkheperre, son of Pharaoh Pinedjem I by wife Duathathor-Henuttawy (daughter of Ramesses XI by wife Tentamon), was the High Priest of Amun at Thebes in ancient Egypt from 1045 BC to 992 BC and ''de facto'' ruler of the south of the country. ...

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 ...

; her mother was Princess Isetemkheb, a daughter of Pharaoh

Psusennes I Psusennes I ( egy, pꜣ-sbꜣ-ḫꜥ-n-njwt; Greek Ψουσέννης) was the third pharaoh of the 21st Dynasty who ruled from Tanis between 1047 and 1001 BC. ''Psusennes'' is the Greek version of his original name Pasibkhanu or Pasebakhaenniut ...

. Two of her brothers,

Pinedjem II Pinedjem II was a High Priest of Amun at Thebes in Ancient Egypt from 990 BC to 969 BC and was the ''de facto'' ruler of the south of the country. He was married to his full sister Isetemkheb D (both children of Menkheperre, the High Priest of ...

and

Smendes II Smendes II was a High Priest of Amun at Thebes in Ancient Egypt. He briefly governed from about 992 to 990 BC., p.207 Biography The name ''Smendes'' is a hellenization of the Egyptian name ''Nesbanebdjed'' (''"He of the ram, lord of Mendes"''), ...

became High Priests of Amun. Gautseshen married Tjanefer, the Fourth, later Third Prophet of Amun. They had two sons, Pinedjem, later Fourth Prophet, and Menkheperre, Third Prophet of Amun. She was buried at

Bab el-Gasus Bab el-Gasus ( arz, باب الجسس, bāb el-gasus, lit=Gate of the Priests

pies A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), sweet ...

p. 17: "Daressy’s moniker ‘Tomb of the Priests’ likely finds its origins in the local traditions of Sheikh abd el Gurnah. Indeed, this phrase could be tran ...

, where most of her family members were buried. Her coffins and funerary papyrus are now in the

Egyptian 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 a ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

. The papyrus is a beautifully illustrated copy of the ''

Book of the Dead The ''Book of the Dead'' ( egy, 𓂋𓏤𓈒𓈒𓈒𓏌𓏤𓉐𓂋𓏏𓂻𓅓𓉔𓂋𓅱𓇳𓏤, ''rw n(y)w prt m hrw(w)'') is an ancient Egyptian funerary text generally written on papyrus and used from the beginning of the New Kingdom ...

,'' which shows the changes in funerary texts during the 21st dynasty, when the solar cult and that of

Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was ...

gradually merged. One of the examples of this can be seen in three spells, which originally mentioned Ra (as it can be seen from 18th dynasty copies of the text), but here they mention Osiris. Another hymn, originally belonging to Osiris, was enriched with solar elements.R. Lucarelli: ''The Book of the Dead of Gautseshen.'' In: Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century. Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress of Egyptologists, Cairo, 2000. . pp.270-274.

References

{{authority control Ancient Egyptian priestesses People of the Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt 11th-century BC Egyptian women 10th-century BC Egyptian women 11th-century BC clergy 10th-century BC clergy Ancient singers