Nubian Women of Power

“The king’s mother is an expression of the ancestors. Through her presence, the king is linked to his forefathers and through the presence of his wife he is connected to the future and the eternal continuation of kingship.”

Compared to ancient Egypt and other cultures of the ancient world, the royal women in the kingdom of Kush (8^th cent. BCE – 4^th cent. CE) held an even more important position. So much so that in the Meroitic period, in the 1^st century CE, they were able to even ascend the throne as reigning rulers. But even before that, in the Napatan period, they were depicted in various contexts and mentioned in texts. Basically, they are found as companions of the king in cult acts, but also as independent actors before the gods. Nubian queens, in most cases the mother and the consort, are shown together with the pharaoh in the center of the remarkable royal stelae, telling us about the accession to the throne and about the other important events that occurred during the rule of the respective king. In the lunette, the queen accompanies the king in a motive; which is a symbolical visualisation of the coronation. The presence of the royal mother and the consort at the coronation – sometimes also attested in the texts – implies that the female counterpart of the male king was eminently vital: In the Napatan period, no representation of the coronation exists without royal women. One other reason is the fact that the succession to the throne has a strong matrilineal component: It is that the respective mother of a king was decisive for whether a man could be crowned as king or not.

The guarantee for continuation of life and the kingdom is made visible by the complementary male/female dichotomy, remarkably shown in the lunettes of the stelae. But this complementary presence of genders is not only depicted by the king and his female companions; it is represented through the different generations as well. The generations are the basis for movement, for perpetual development and renewal. The king’s mother is an expression of the ancestors. Through her presence, the king is linked to his forefathers and through the presence of his wife he is connected to the future and the eternal continuation of kingship.

The close connection between the king and the queen, again mother and consort, is also evident in the cemeteries. While in Egypt, there are cemeteries reserved exclusively for the king, in Kush, the queens are buried in pyramids, too, and in the same cemetery as the ruler. Although differences in size and grave furnishings are visible, the exclusivity of a royal cemetery also includes the queens.

In the Meroitic period, certain royal women ascended to the throne and acted just as the king would do; she smites the enemy, she raises her hands in adoration in front of the gods in the temple, and she even receives the crowns from the gods. Although the title qore (Meroitic: king) is primarily male, the representation of the ruling queens was explicitly female: whereas her costume is created according to the male royal dress, her impressive curves are a strong statement of femininity.

We know at least nine ruling queens by their tombs in Meroe. They date to period between the end of the 2^nd century BCE and the beginning of the 4^th century CE. Only few of these queens left evidence apart from their pyramid chapels: the most famous are Amanirenase and Amanishakheto. Both of them could have been the opponents of the Roman legions, since they lived in the second half of the 1^st century BCE. While Amanirenase erected two monumental stelae with a long Meroitic inscription, qore Amanishakheto is the queen whose throne treasure was found in her tomb. Her divine birth as well as the godly election is depicted on her golden seal rings. Another important royal woman was the kandake (Meroitic: royal mother) Amanitore (early 1^st cent. CE). In all presentations of king Natakamani she is presented as an equal counterpart; she receives the crowns, fulfills prayers, smites the enemies in antithetical scenes. The couple Natakamani and Amanitore left behind a large number of buildings, the majority of sources on the Meroitic period date from this reign. And yet, we know hardly anything about this famous couple.

In several depictions of female qore, there is an anonymous man standing behind her; be it in the pyramid chapel, in statuary or temple relief. It is reasonable to interpret these men as the counterpart of the female ruler. In Napatan times, the royal women formed a significant factor in the Kushite kingship. Without the queenship, this kingship would be inconceivable. It is clear from the sources that Kushite kingship enshrined both the male and female aspects in its ideology. If for the male kings it is the queen who serves as the "feminine complement," the Meroitic rulers need a "masculine complement" to legitimize and secure their rule. Only joint appearance and action, even if only idealistic, could keep the Kushite kingship in function.

Figure: Kandake Amanitore on the Lion-Temple of Naqa, drawn by the Prussian Expedition of Lepsius 1844

(http://edoc3.bibliothek.uni-halle.de/lepsius/tafelwa5.html)

References

• Lohwasser, Die königlichen Frauen im antiken Reich von Kusch. 25. Dynastie bis zur Zeit des Nastasen; Meroitica 19 (2001)
• Lohwasser, Queenship in Kush: Status, Role and Ideology of Royal Women, Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt Vol. 38 (2001), 61-76
• Lohwasser, The Role and Status of royal women in Kush, in: E. Carney/S. Müller (Hgg.), The Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean, Oxford (2021), 61–72
• Lohwasser & J. Phillips, Women and Gender in ancient Kush, in: G. Emberling/B. B. Williams (Hgg.), The Oxford Handbook of Nubia, Oxford (2020), 1015–1032
• -H. Priese, The Gold of Meroe. New York 1993.