Tabiry was a
Nubia
Nubia () (Nobiin: Nobīn, ) is a region along the Nile river encompassing the area between the first cataract of the Nile (just south of Aswan in southern Egypt) and the confluence of the Blue and White Niles (in Khartoum in central Sudan), or ...
n queen dated to the
Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt
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 ...
.
[Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton: ''The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt.'' Thames & Hudson, 2004, , p.234-240]
Biography
Tabiry was the daughter of
Alara of Nubia
Alara was a King of Kush, who is generally regarded as the founder of the Napatan royal dynasty by his 25th Dynasty Kushite successors and was the first recorded prince of Kush. He unified all of Upper Nubia from Meroë to the Third Cataract and ...
and his wife Kasaqa and the wife of King
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. ...
. She held some interesting titles: Main King's Wife, first of her majesty (''hmt niswt 'at tpit n hm.f'') (the only other queen to hold the Main King's Wife title was
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 ...
) and “The Great One of the Foreign Country” (''ta-aat-khesut''). She also holds the more standard titles of King's Wife (''hmt niswt''), King's Daughter (''s3t niswt''), and King's Sister (''snt niswt'').
[Grajetski, ''Ancient Egyptian Queens: a hieroglyphic dictionary'', Golden House Publications. p.88]
Tabiry was buried in a pyramid at
El-Kurru
El-Kurru was the first of the three royal cemeteries used by the Kushite royals of Napata, also referred to as Egypt's 25th Dynasty, and is home to some of the royal Nubian Pyramids. It is located between the 3rd and 4th cataracts of the Nile ab ...
(K.53). A carved granite funerary stela found in her tomb mentions she is the daughter of Alara of Nubia and the wife of Piye. The stela is now in
Khartoum
Khartoum or Khartum ( ; ar, الخرطوم, Al-Khurṭūm, din, Kaartuɔ̈m) is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing n ...
.
The stela gives Tabiry further titles. Reisner had initially translated one of her titles as 'the great chieftainess of the Temehu' (southern Libyans), and concluded that the royal house of
Kush
Kush or Cush may refer to:
Bible
* Cush (Bible), two people and one or more places in the Hebrew Bible
Places
* Kush (mountain), a mountain near Kalat, Pakistan Balochistan
* Kush (satrapy), a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire
* Hindu Kush, a ...
was somehow related to the Libyans. Others have since shown that her title should be read as "Great One (or 'Chieftainess') of the Desert-dwellers", showing her title connects her to the Nubians.
A blue faience ''
ushabti
The ushabti (also called shabti or shawabti, with a number of variant spellings) was a funerary figurine used in ancient Egyptian funerary practices. The Egyptological term is derived from , which replaced earlier , perhaps the nisba of "' ...
'' of Tabiry is now in the
Petrie Museum
The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London is part of University College London Museums and Collections. The museum contains over 80,000 objects and ranks among some of the world's leading collections of Egyptian and Sudanese material ...
in London (UC13220).
Shabti UC13220 on the Petrie Museum website
/ref>
References
8th-century BC women
Queens consort of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt
8th-century BC Egyptian people
{{AncientEgypt-bio-stub