Nitocris I (Divine Adoratrice)

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Nitoqret (alt. Nitiqret, Nitocris, Nitokris I) (died 584 BC) reigned as Divine Adoratrice of Amun or God's Wife of Amun for over fifty years, between 655 BC and 584 BC. She was the daughter of Psammetichus I. Psammetichus I dispatched a powerful naval fleet in March 656 BC to Thebes and compelled the serving God's Wife of Amun Shepenupet II, a daughter of Piye to adopt his daughter Nitocris I as her Heiress in the so-called Adoption Stela.^[1]

Prior to her career in office, the Assyrians had invaded Egypt in 671 B.C., sacked Thebes and robbed its temples of their many treasures. When she was in her eighties, she adopted her great-niece Ankhnesneferibre ^[2], the daughter of Psammetichus II.

She was buried in the grounds of Medinet-Habu^[3].

[edit] References

I. E. S. Edwards, John Boardman, John B. Bury, S. A. Cook, The Cambridge Ancient History
Aidan Dodson, Monarchs of the Nile, American Univ. in Cairo Press

^ James H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, Part Four, §§ 942ff.: The adoption stela of Nitocris
^ Edwards et al. op.cit. p.733
^ Pascal Vernus, Jean Yoyotte, The Book of the Pharaohs, Cornell University Press 2003. p.1