Mutemwiya

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Mutemwiya (also Mutemwia, Mutemweya; "Mut in the divine bark") was a minor wife of Thutmose IV, a pharaoh of Egypt, in the Eighteenth Dynasty and the mother of Amenhotep III. It is certain she received many of her titles – including that of Great Royal Wife – only after her husband's death, when she gained prominence as the new pharaoh's mother. During Thutmose's rule, only his two other wives, Nefertari and Iaret bore the title of Great Royal Wife.

She is shown in the Luxor temple, in the scenes depicting the divine birth of her son Amenhotep. A statue, which shows her in a boat was found in Karnak and is now in the British Museum; originally it had been probably taken from her mortuary temple. Along with her daughter-in-law Tiye, she is also shown on the Colossi of Memnon erected by Amenhotep III.^[1]

While she was occasionally identified with a daughter of King Artatama of Mitanni--in an attempt to give her an exotic origin--no evidence proves that they are at all the same person and nothing is known of her own background.^[2] It is believed now that she was not a daughter of Artatama.^[3].

Mutemwiya's titles include:^[4]

God’s Wife (hm.t-ntr)
Great King’s Wife (hm.t-niswt-wr.t)
Lady of The Two Lands (nb.t-t3wy)
Great King’s Wife, his beloved (hm.t-nisw.t-wr.t mery.t=f)
Hereditary Princess (iry.t-p`.t)
Great of Praises (wr.t-hzw.t)
Sweet of Love (bnr.t-mrw.t)
Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt (hnw.t-Shm’w-mhw)
God's Mother (mwt-ntr)

Mutemwiya is called both "king's mother" (mut nesu) and "god's mother" (mut netjer) but this amounts to the same thing since the god in question was the reigning king, Amenhotep III.^[5] The date of her death is unknown, but she is believed to survive deep into her son's reign due to her presence of the Colossi of Memnon as well as a mention of her estate on a wine-jar label from Amenhotep III's Malkata palace in Thebes.^[6] She was buried in Thebes.

[edit] References

^ Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson (2004), p.137, 140.
^ Betsy Bryan, The Reign of Thutmose IV, (Johns Hopkins University Press: 1991), p.119
^ Nicolas Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, (Blackwell Books: 1992), p.221
^ http://euler.slu.edu/Dept/Faculty/bart/egyptianhtml/kings%20and%20Queens/Tuthmosis_IV.html
^ Betsy Bryan, Chapter 6: "Thutmose IV Abroad and at Home" in 'The Reign of Thutmose IV,' op. cit., pp.113-118
^ David O'Connor & Eric Cline, Amenhotep III: Perspectives on his reign, University of Michigan Press, 1998, p.5

[edit] Further reading

Grajetzki, Wolfram (2005) Ancient Egyptian Queens – a hieroglyphic dictionary
David O'Connor & Eric Cline, Amenhotep III: Perspectives on his reign, University of Michigan Press, 1998