An Egyptian queen fought 4 000 years ago for equal political rights with men and was granted the supreme honour of receiving a pharaonic burial, a French archaeological team announced on Wednesday.
The texts found engraved in the pyramid of Queen Ankhenespepi II were meant to allow her become immortal, a privilege until then restricted to the pharaohs, said the team in a resume of its latest research campaign in the ancient Saqqara cemetery complex, 20 kilometres south of Cairo.
”An exceptional funerary complex was built for this powerful woman, and pyramid texts were engraved in the tomb chamber to open the road of eternity before her,” wrote the mission led by Audran Labrousse.
”The dignity of the monument is until this day unique” for an Egyptian queen, ”which induces the possibility that she received a near-kingly burial,” it added.
Pyramid texts are prayers and magic formulas engraved in hieroglyphics on the walls of the compartment containing the sarcophagus, meant to help the pharaoh rise from the dead and become part of the eternal world of the Gods.
In the pyramid of Ankhenespepi II, the text addresses the queen, telling her to ”stand up, remove the earth and shake the dust away, get ready for the voyage … you will not die, your name will remain.”
The discovery of the texts in the remains of the queen’s pyramid was announced two years ago, but the indications published at the time said they were prayers for the immortality of the pharaohs, not her own.
Ankhenespepi II married two kings, Pepi I and his successor Merenre, and then ruled for many years as regent for her son, Pepi II, who was only six years old when he ascended the throne.
Because she ruled like a king, she claimed the right to immortality, implementing a pharaonic version of equal rights and duties.
Her pyramid was not more than 15 meters high, but she had an impressive funerary temple at the entrance.
The lintel of the gate’s temple, unearthed in 1997, is a 17-ton block of granite engraved with an inscription that starts with her title, ”Mother of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt.”
The importance of Ankhenespepi II is also attested in a 40-centimeter statue representing her with Pepi II as a child on her lap, kept in New York’s Brooklyn Museum of Art.
According to Manetho, an Egyptian historian of the third century BC, Pepi II ruled 94 years, the longest reign in history.
But Pepi II was also the last pharaoh of the Old Kingdom, a glorious period spanning four centuries (circa 2600 to 2200 BC) that ended in the chaos of a rebellion during which royal tombs were desecrated and pillaged.
Historians agree that a series of bad harvests and waning central authority were the main reasons behind the collapse of the Old Kingdom.
But Labrousse told reporters here that Ankhenespepi’s quest for immortality broke a major pillar of pharaonic spiritual power and might have produced religious and social upheaval that also contributed to the revolt.
”What she did allowed all the Egyptians to claim in turn eternal life,” the French archaeologist explained. He expected the upcoming round of excavations and research in Saqqara ”to shed more light on this period of mutations.”
Ancient Egypt had only a handful of female rulers, the best known of whom was the pharaoh Hatshepsut, who lived in the 15th century BC. – AFP
