Betrest

Betrest (Batirytes^[2], Batires^[3] Betresh) was a Queen consort of ancient Egypt. She lived during the 1st dynasty.

Flinders Petrie may have considered the first two glyphs as part of a title, and reads the name on the Palermo stone fragment as Tarset.^[4]

Biography

Betrest was the mother of Semerkhet.^[2] She is mentioned as Semerkhet's mother on the Palermo Stone fragment which is now in Cairo^[5].

The identity of her husband is disputed. Some consider King Den (Pharaoh) to have been her husband. If so, King Anedjib would have been a (half-)brother of King Semerkhet.^[3] Another theory is that Betrest was the wife of the short-lived Anedjib.^[2]

She is possibly also identified on a stela found at Abydos.^[6] The name of the person on the stela included the sheep-hieroglyph which reads "Ba" and the signs "s" and "t" are visible. If this monument belongs to Queen Betrest, then it preserves part of a title with a Horus-falcon sign, which may be part of the She Who Sees Horus title, which is a common title for queen consorts in the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt.^[3]

References

1. ^ Silke Roth: Die Königsmütter des Alten Ägypten von der Frühzeit bis zum Ende der 12. Dynastie. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-447-04368-7, page 384.
2. ^ ^{a b c} Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, 2004, ISBN 0-500-05128-3
3. ^ ^{a b c} Grajetski Ancient Egyptian Queens: a hieroglyphic dictionary Golden House Publications, pg. 4-5
4. ^ W. M. Flinders Petrie: A History of Egypt, from the earliest Kings to the XVIth Dynasty, London 1923 (10th Edition), p. 22
5. ^ J.H. Breasted, Records of Ancient Egypt, VOL 1
6. ^ G. T. Martin: An Early Dynastic Stela from Abydos: private or royal?, In: S. Quirke: Discovering Egypt from the Neva, The Egyptological Legacy of Oleg D Berlev, Berlin 2003 ISBN 3-933684-18-8, 79-84