Isetnofret

Isetnofret
Queen consort of Egypt
Great Royal Wife
Upper Register: King Ramesses II, Isetnofret and Khaemwaset before Khnum
Lower Register, left to right: Merneptah, Bintanath and Prince Ramesses.
Burial
Saqqara ?
SpouseRamesses II
IssueRamesses
Bintanath
Khaemwaset
Merenptah
Isetnofret ?
Egyptian name
stt
H8		 nfrr&t
Dynasty19th of Egypt
FatherNemtimose (?)
MotherIsitnofret (?)
ReligionAncient Egyptian religion

Isetnofret (or Isis-nofret or Isitnofret) (Ancient Egyptian: "the beautiful/good Isis" or "Isis is beautiful/good") was one of the Great Royal Wives of Pharaoh Ramesses II and was the mother of his successor, Merneptah. She may have become, around the same time as Nefertari, one of the many wives of Ramesses II before he was pharaoh (In the first year of his tenure as crown prince, Ramesses II was granted an entire harem by his father, Seti I). All evidence confirming Isetnofret's title of Chief Queen comes from after her death, suggesting that she was likely posthumously granted the title, around the 30th to 33rd/34th year of Ramesses II's reign.

Family

The parents of Isetnofret are not known. There is substantial evidence suggesting that she had blood relationship with Pharaoh Horemheb. She is believed to have originated from Memphis and may have been closely related to Tanedjemet, the wife of Seti I and daughter of Horemheb. A block from Horemheb's tomb at Saqqara depicts an "Isetnofret" dressed as a princess. In Saqqara, this "Isetnofret" also appears on a block belonging to a male officer, bearing the title "Mistress of the House." She may have been a daughter born to Horemheb before he became pharaoh, who later married the officer and gave birth to the Isetnofret who eventually married Ramesses II. She must have married Ramesses II even before he came to the throne as her three children were born during the reign of Seti I. She had at least three sons and one daughter. Her children include:

Prince Sethi and Princess Nebettawy have been suggested as further children of Isetnofret, but they are more likely to be the children of Nefertari (or even some other mother).

Titles

Queen Isetnofret's titles include: Hereditary Princess (iryt-p't), Great of Praises (wrt-hzwt), King's Mother (mwt-niswt), Mistress of the entire Two Lands (hnwt-t3wy-tm), King's Wife (hmt-nisw), Great King's Wife (hmt-niswt-wrt)

Of these, only the title "King's Wife" can be definitively attested during her lifetime. While monuments depicting Isetnofret as "Great King's Wife" are known, these monuments were all produced by her sons, and not by the pharaoh himself, and their chronological position is uncertain and may have been accorded posthumously. In the reign of her son, Merneptah, the titles "Hereditary Princess," "Great of Praises," "King's Mother," and "Mistress of the Entire Two Lands" were all conferred upon her in a relief at the foot of a statue of the king.

Life

Isetnofret is known from several inscriptions and small statues. Before the 30th year of Ramesses II's reign, the only clear evidence of her existence is the existence of her children themselves. In fact, she never appears in Ramesses II's constructions and is only attested through the monuments of her sons and her own funerary equipment.

Monuments that mention Isetnofret:

Monuments possibly attributable to Isetnofret:

Monuments formerly misattributed to Isetnofret:

A daughter of her son Khaemwaset (sometimes called Isetnofret III) was named after her. It is possible that this Isetnofret was Merenptah's wife, not her aunt Isetnofret II. A possible daughter of Merneptah also bears this name.

In private monuments, Isetnofret is attested in both Upper and Lower Egypt. Her two most notable records, namely the family stelae of Khaemwaset, are located at Aswan and Silsila in Upper Egypt, while funerary-related records and other mentions concerning her and her sons are found at Memphis in Lower Egypt. However, she did not appear in any of Ramesses II's official monuments. Given the complete absence of Isetnofret from the official artistic program of Ramesses II, any specific interpretation of a singular omission—such as attempting to explain her absence from the Great Temple of Abu Simbel or from the official art related to Ramesses II’s Sed festival—is rendered meaningless, as she is in no instance mentioned by her husband, the pharaoh. Besides that, she was also not buried in the Valley of the Queens, but rather in a local tomb at Saqqara. Although her son became pharaoh, she does not appear on the royal ancestor lists of the Ramesside period, and there is no evidence that she held the title of Great King's Wife during her lifetime, despite assertions by some scholars. All evidence indicates that Isetnofret was simply an ordinary King's Wife. She was respected due to her possible confirmed familial connection to Pharaoh Horemheb and as the mother of several older princes and princesses. That she has emerged from historical obscurity to be known to modern audiences is entirely thanks to her son, especially Khaemwaset. As the Belgian Egyptologist Claude Obsomer note:

One will note the ankh sign held by Queen Isetnofret on the stela of Gebel Silsileh, which suggests that her death had occurred some time before year 33/34. Adding to this the fact that the Brussels statue and the Aswan graffito grant her only the title of "Royal Wife," one may wonder whether Isetnofret truly was "Great Royal Wife" during Nefertari’s lifetime, or whether this title was conferred on her only after Nefertari’s death, or even after her own death, in a purely honorific manner. The third hypothesis seems to me the most likely. This makes it easier to understand the subdued role played by Isetnofret throughout her life, while the only "Great Royal Wife" was Nefertari, followed by her own daughter Bintanath. As for the succession to the throne, the choice of Ramesses as heir presumptive, after the death of the eldest son Amun-her-khepeshef, can thus be explained by the simple respect for the order of birth of the royal sons, independently of their mother’s status as "Great Royal Wife." There is no need to imagine a rivalry between the two queens or between their sons, if matters were clear from the outset and guaranteed by the authority of the king. Once they had attained important positions, succeeding one another as heir to the throne, the three sons of Isetnofret could only have rejoiced at thus occupying the forefront of the scene, while their mother had been content to remain modestly in the shadow of Nefertari, like other anonymous royal wives. It is their monuments that today allow us to know her name. On several objects bearing the name of Khaemwaset, she is mentioned in the prince’s maternal filiation formula: "he whom the Great Royal Wife Isetnofret bore."

Notes

  1. ↑ It was primarily based on the ushabti of Bintanath, the eldest daughter of Isetnofret, which was discovered in the tomb of Horemheb at Saqqara. This was a tomb Horemheb had prepared for himself before he became pharaoh, where his original wife Amenia and his Great Royal Wife Mutnedjmet were both buried. Additionally, the second family stela of Khaemwaset—the one depicting Isetnofret as a deceased figure—is located at the Temple of Horemheb in Silsila. After Merenptah ascended the throne, he also commissioned an important new stela at this site
  2. ↑ In the Turin Papyrus, among the listed queens of Ramesses II, Nefertari, who is placed at the very forefront, is referred to as the "Great King's Wife," while the other queens are all labeled as "King's Daughter, King's Wife" or "King's Daughter and Wife." In the case of Sitamun, daughter of Amenhotep III, although she and her mother both held the title of Great King's Wife, they were almost never depicted together in imagery. In textual records, Queen Sitamun is often mentioned alongside her birth mother, for example: "King's Daughter, King's Wife, Sitamun, born to the Great King's Wife, Tiye, may she live and stay stable like Re forever." Although they were frequently both titled as "King's Wife," such as in "King's Daughter and Wife, Sitamun, born to the King's Wife, Tiye," they were never simultaneously referred to as "Great King's Wife." Nor was there ever a case where Sitamun was called "Great King's Wife" while Tiye was merely called "King's Wife." On a knob where the cartouches of Amenhotep III, Tiye, and Sitamun are all mentioned together, although the three cartouches are arranged side by side and both mother and daughter are titled "King's Wife," the names of the royal couple and Sitamun's name face each other, as if Sitamun is paying homage to her parents. This indicates that traditionally, although a mother and daughter might both be queens, the significance of this title differed for them; the princess-queen was an additional element to the royal couple, rather than a counterpart to her mother. However, the case of Isetnofret and her daughter Bintanath is entirely different
  3. ↑ The titles here point to a cultic context, just as in the annual re-enactment of the embalming of Osiris, the female wailers who impersonated Isis and Nephthys would say: "Ah! I have washed my mouth, I have chewed natron, I have fumigated myself with burning incense. I am pure, clean, and censed, with natron that has come from El-Kâb, with incense that has come from Punt, the sweet perfume that has come from the eye of Horus..." Egyptian priestesses had to purify themselves by bathing before taking part in temple services, though in other circumstances they might not need, like the priestesses who played Isis and Nephthys, to purify themselves "four times for seven days to seven days" and to remove all hair from their bodies
  4. ↑ These factors contribute to ensuring that a royal wife is respected, yet they may not necessarily aid her political career. Since the position of "Great Royal Wife" was an immensely significant political and religious role, pharaohs tended to carefully select someone they trusted for this position. For instance, although Queen Mutnofret was the daughter of Ahmose I and the sister of Amenhotep I, it was she who directly connected her husband Thutmose II's reign to his predecessor, as Thutmose II was not of princely birth. Additionally, she was the mother of the crown prince and other princes. She was highly respected, and her name was inscribed in a cartouche. Yet, the Great Royal Wife of Thutmose II was his own sister, Ahmose
  5. ↑ It has been proposed that Isetnofret was important in Lower Egypt and Nefertari was important in Upper Egypt, with the evidence being that they appear only in Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt respectively and never appear together. But this evidence is itself mistaken. Nefertari had significant monuments at Pi-Ramesses, Memphis, Giza, Heliopolis, and Bubastis. In particular, at the temple of Pi-Ramesses, cartouche stamp seals relating to her have been found; these seals belonged to the city's everyday administrative, sealing, and supply management system, indicating that her status as queen entered the administrative environment of Pi-Ramesses itself. As for Isetnofret, her status as Great Royal Wife can only be demonstrated in the thirties of the king's reign, after her death, in the records and funerary goods of her son. All of her attestations everywhere are dependent on the private records of her son, especially Khaemwaset. She indeed does not appear in Thebes, but this is clearly not because Thebes was Nefertari's domain—as "Mistress of All Lands," Nefertari's domain was conceptually the whole world and, in reality, the entire territory of Egypt—but because where Isetnofret appears mainly depended on when and where Khaemwaset decided to include his mother in his own monuments. It is certainly possible that there were private monuments in Lower Egypt connected with Isetnofret, and they may not have been insignificant, but the true owner of such monuments would most likely only have been Khaemwaset. The records of Nefertari are overwhelmingly official records; Isetnofret, who was never included in official monuments, could not have appeared in monuments associated with her, and there is no reason for Nefertari to appear in monuments made by Khaemwaset or in Isetnofret's funerary items. The attempt to elevate Isetnofret's status to Nefertari's sphere probably stems from the mistaken assumption that a Great Royal Wife ought to have had a status like Nefertari's. But Nefertari's status was transcendent, whereas Isetnofret's status, evidently, after the deaths of Nefertari and Amunherkhepeshef, as the mother of the then crown prince, then Great Royal Wife, and then High Priest of Ptah, was the most important among all the king's wives. Yet her status was important only relative to the king's other wives. Her sphere never extended beyond her own small household and the circle of women in the harem, while at that time true Queenship was held by the princess-queens. They were not wives in the true sense, but at this time only they could be called "queen" in the modern sense. For details, see Obsomer 2011; on Nefertari, see Nefertari.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Obsomer, Claude (2012). Ramsès II. Grands pharaons. Paris: Pygmalion. pp. 245–249. ISBN 978-2-7564-0588-9.
  2. 1 2 Leblanc, Christian. "Isis-Nofret, grande épouse de Ramsès II. La reine, sa famille et Nofretari". Institut français d'archéologie orientale: 331.
  3. ↑ Tallet, Pierre (2013). Les 12 reines d'Égypte qui ont changé l'Histoire. Pygmalion.
  4. ↑ Nozomu Kawai, « The Tomb of Isisnofret at Northwest Saqqara », dans Miroslav Bàrta, Filip Coppens & Jaromír Krejci (éd.), Abusir and Saqqara in the Year 2010, I, 2011, p. 508-509.
  5. 1 2 Obsomer, Claude (2012). Ramsès II. Les grands pharaons. Paris: Pygmalion. pp. 270–271. ISBN 978-2-7564-0588-9.
  6. 1 2 3 Obsomer, Claude (2012). Ramsès II. Grands pharaons. Paris: Pygmalion. pp. 272–275. ISBN 978-2-7564-0588-9.
  7. ↑ Dodson & Hilton, p.170
  8. 1 2 Dodson & Hilton, p.171
  9. 1 2 Servajean, Frédéric (2014). Mérenptah et la fin de la XIXe dynastie: Moïse, Exode, la reine Taousert. Pygmalion.
  10. ↑ Dodson & Hilton, p.167
  11. ↑ Iskander, Sameh (2002). The Reign of Merenptah. UMI Dissertation Services. pp. 47–48.
  12. 1 2 3 Peter Brand, Ramesses II: Egypt's Ultimate Pharaoh (2013) 223-225
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Kitchen, K.A., Ramesside Inscriptions, Translated & Annotated, Translations, Volume II, Blackwell Publishers, 1996.
  14. ↑ Gautron, Christelle. "Position et influence des mères, épouses et filles royales de l'avènement d'Amenhotep III au règne d'Horemheb. Volume 1: Analyse de la documentation." Lyon 2, 2003. p. 275-277
  15. ↑ Obsomer, Claude (2012). Ramsès II. Grands pharaons. Paris: Pygmalion. pp. 257–258. ISBN 978-2-7564-0588-9.
  16. ↑ Robins, Gay (1996). Las Mujeres En El Antiguo Egipto. Akal Editions. p. 31.
  17. 1 2 Kitchen (1998). Ramesside Inscriptions, Ramesses II: Royal Inscriptions: Translated and Annotated, Notes and Comments. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 622.
  18. ↑ Jackson, Lesley (2018). Sekhmet & Bastet: The Feline Powers of Egypt. Avalonia.
  19. ↑ Blackman, Aylward M. (1921). "On the Position of Women in the Ancient Egyptian Hierarchy". The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. 7: 8–30 – via jstor.
  20. ↑ Fisher, Marjorie M. (2001). The sons of Ramesses II. Ägypten und Altes Testament. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. p. 104. ISBN 978-3-447-04486-8.
  21. ↑ Ghiringhelli, François (2025). "A Private Geographical Procession from the Reign of Ramesses II". Bulletin de la Société D’Égyptologie. 34 (December): 89–101.
  22. 1 2 Rosalind L. B. Moss, Bertha Porter ·Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings: V. Upper Egypt: Sites (Deir Rifa to Aswan, Excluding Thebes and the Temples of Abydos, Dendera, Esna, Edfu, Kom Ombo, and Philae) ：Oxford University Press, 1937, p.217
  23. ↑ Kitchen, Kenneth (2003). Ramesside inscriptions. Translated and annotated. Translations. Vol IV: Merenptah and the Late Nineteenth Dynasty. B.H. Blackwell. p. 63.
  24. ↑ Kitchen, Kenneth (1993). Ramesside inscriptions. Translated and annotated. Notes and Comments. Vol. I: Ramesses I, Sethos I and Contemporariesy. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 69–77.
  25. ↑ Iskander, Sameh (2002). The Reign of Merenptah. UMI Dissertation Services. pp. 48–51.
  26. ↑ Janssen, J (1961). Two Ancient Egyptian Ships' Logs. E. J. Brill. p. 26.
  27. ↑ Dorn, Andreas, and Stéphane Polis. 2016. "A Re-Examination of O. Cairo JdE 72460 (= O. Cairo SR 1475): Ending the Quest for a 19th Dynasty Queen's Tomb in the Valley of the Kings." Pages 129–61 in Aere perennius: Mélanges égyptologiques en l'honneur de Pascal Vernus. Edited by Philippe Collom?bert et al. OLA 252. Leuven: Peeters.
  28. ↑ Dodson & Hilton, p.182
  29. ↑ Leblanc, Christian (1999). Nefertari: l'Aimée-de-Mout épouses, filles et fils de Ramsès II. Champollion. Monaco [Paris]: Éd. du Rocher. p. 62. ISBN 978-2-268-02947-4.
  30. ↑ Tyldesley, Joyce A. (1996). Hatchepsut: the female pharaoh. Viking. pp. 75–77.
  31. ↑ Obsomer, Claude (2012). Ramsès II. Grands pharaons. Paris: Pygmalion. p. 280. ISBN 978-2-7564-0588-9.