Nofret was a noblewoman and princess who lived in Ancient Egypt during the 4th dynasty of

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

c. 2613 to 2494 BC. ''Nefert'' means "beautiful". Nofret is alternatively known as Nefert or Neferet.

Biography

Nofret's parents are not known. Nofret married

Prince Rahotep Prince Rahotep was a prince in ancient Egypt during the 4th Dynasty. He was probably a son of Pharaoh Sneferu and his first wife, although Zahi Hawass suggests his father was Huni. ''Rahotep'' (''R' htp'') means " Ra is Satisfied". Ra is a god o ...

, a son of

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...

Sneferu Sneferu ( snfr-wj "He has perfected me", from ''Ḥr-nb-mꜣꜥt-snfr-wj'' "Horus, Lord of Maat, has perfected me", also read Snefru or Snofru), well known under his Hellenized name Soris ( grc-koi, Σῶρις by Manetho), was the founding phar ...

. She had three daughters and three sons with Rahotep.Dodson and Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, 2004 Nofret was buried with her husband in

mastaba A mastaba (, or ), also mastabah, mastabat or pr- djt (meaning "house of stability", " house of eternity" or "eternal house" in Ancient Egyptian), is a type of ancient Egyptian tomb in the form of a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inwar ...

6 at

Meidum Meidum, Maydum or Maidum ( ar, ميدوم, , ) is an archaeological site in Lower Egypt. It contains a large pyramid and several mudbrick mastabas. The pyramid was Egypt's first straight-sided one, but it partially collapsed in ancient times. The ...

. In 1871 by Daninos, beautiful statues of Rahotep and Nofret were found. Nofret is depicted with a black wig and very fair face. Her titles in hieroglyphs on the back of her chair name her as "King's Acquaintance". The statues 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 ...

in Cairo. The mastaba of the couple had two burial chambers and two cult chapels. The Southern cult chapel belonged to Rahotep, the northern one to Nofret. Here she is depicted with Rahotep in front of an offering table. The inscription over the scene provides a second title for her: ' (translation still not known today).

Children

Children of Nofret and Rahotep were. They all had the same title: * "King's Acquaintance" Djedi *"King's Acquaintance" Itu *"King's Acquaintance" Neferkau *"King's Acquaintance" Mereret *"King's Acquaintance" Nedjemib *"King's Acquaintance" Sethtet

The two statues, Nofret and Rahotep

Prince Rahotep's statue has six columns of text, naming his titles and duties, with columns three and six, each ending with his name, Ra-Hotep. Nofret has identical texts, one column both right and left. Her name appears at the bottom, with the

determinative A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in logographic scripts which helps to disambiguate interpretation. They have no direct counterpart in spoken language, though they may ...

for 'women'. Her complete name is "Nsw-r(kh)-t, Nfr-t". The last, nfr-t means "beautiful woman" (the t being the bread bun for feminine); nsw-r(kh)-t, means "King's Acquaintance". File:Ägyptisches Museum Kairo 2016-03-29 Rahotep Nofret 01.jpg, (Statue 1 + 2)
the pair: Ra-hotep and Nofret File:Rahotep statue.jpg, Ra-hotep
r:a ! R4:t*p

Philately and numismatics

Nofret is depicted on Egyptian stamps of 1958, 1989, and 2000 (the cost is 20 PT.; No. 1669) and on the

Fujairah Fujairah City ( ar, الفجيرة) is the capital of the emirate of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. It is the seventh-largest city in UAE, located on the Gulf of Oman (part of the Indian Ocean). It is the only Emirati capital city on the ...

stamp of 1966 (pair statue). The watermark of the banknote depicts the head of a sculptural image of Nofret.

References

{{authority control 27th-century BC women 26th-century BC women People of the Fourth Dynasty of Egypt Egyptian Museum