QUEEN NITOCRIS OF THE SIXTH DYNASTY
By PERCY E. NEWBERRY
NITOCRIS, the famous queen of Egypt, is mentioned by Herodotus,' Eratosthenes,> and
Manetho ;' at the time of the Roman Emperors she appears as one of the old heroines
of the country.' Placed by Manetho at the end of his Sixth Dynasty, she is described
by him as of fair complexion and the bravest and most beautiful woman of her time.
He adds that she was said to have built the Third Pyramid and reigned twelve years.
Eratosthenes gives the length of her reign as six years and remarks that her name means
:481Jva vUCTJepopos, 'Athena the victorious'. Herodotus records that 'after Menes came
330 kings whose names the priests recited from a papyrus roll. In all these generations
were eighteen Ethiopian kings and one queen, a native of the country; the rest were
all Egyptian men. The name of the queen was the same as that of the Babylonian
princess Nitocris.'! The Greek historian continues: 'To avenge her brother (he was
king of Egypt and was slain by his subjects who then gave Nitocris the sovereignty)
she put many Egyptians to death by guile. She built a spacious underground chamber;
then, with the pretence of handselling it, but with far other intent in her mind, she
gave a great feast, inviting those Egyptians whom she knew to have been most concerned
in her brother's murder; and, while they feasted, she let the river in upon them by a great
secret channel. This was all that the priests told of her, save that when she had done this,
she cast herself into a chamber full of hot ashes, thereby to escapevengeance.' In the light
of our present knowledge it is not possible to saywhether there is any truth in these details
of the queen's life, but it is remarkable that some modern historians have declared Nitocris
to be a king? and that others have regarded her as an entirely mythical personage."
The earliest authority for the name of this Sixth Dynasty queen is the Royal Papyrus
of Turin, where it is written C~\. ~~~ ~J Ntil,uti. 8 Hincks,9 in 1846, had suspected
I II, 100. 2 Waddell, Manetho (Loeb Classical Series), London, 1940, p. 221.
3 Op, cit., pp. 54--7. 4 Dio Cassius, LXII, 6: Julian, Orat., pp. 126--7.
5 The Babylonian princess was Nitocris (Hdt., I, 185-8), probably a daughter of a Saite king. Hdt., III, I
also mentions a daughter of Apries named Nitetis ('Neith is come'), 'a very tall and fair damsel', sent by Amasis
to Cambyses. 6 Stem, Z)JS, XXIII, 92.
7 H. R. Hall (JHS XXIV [19°4],213) wrote: 'it seems tome that we must abolish the Nitocris ofthe VIthDynasty,
who is a mere theory of Manetho's'. Cf. the same writer in CAHI (1925), 296, where he says 'the successors of
Pepi II were entirely ephemeral and are only interesting because one of them, Neterkere, appears, though a man,
to be the original of the Nitocris of Herodotus: Manetho accepts the identification and speaks of a queen in this
place. Neterkerewas followed by Menkere and the similarity of his name to that of Menkaure led to the association
of Neterkere (confused with the Saite queen's name Neitakrit, i.e. "Nitocris") with the Third Pyramid of Gizeh.'
8 Ranke, Die iigyptischen Personennamen, 1935, p. 181, gives no example of the name of earlier date than
Dyn. XXVI, but Petrie found a statuette of a Queen Nitocris dated to the reign of Ammenemes III (Gardiner-
Peet, Inscriptions of Sinai, pl. 29, No. 9 8). The name suggests a Saite origin. It was a princess Nitocris who,
as daughter of Psammetichus I, was sent from the palace at Sais to Thebes, where she was installed as High
Priestess and wife of the god Amlin. In earlier times the queens of Menes and Djet (both of Dyn, I) bore
names compounded with Neith: Nithetp and Mertneith respectively; these queens were certainly princesses
of the north-western Delta.
9 Trans. Royal Soc. of Literature, Second Series, III (1850), 129 fr. Hincks's paper was read 12 March 184 6 •
52 PERCY E. NEWBERRY
that Fragment 43 of the papyrus on which the name appears should be attached to
Frag. 59, and placed nearly where Frag. 53 stands in Wilkinson's facsimile of the
papyrus, I for he had recognized that although the names of the kings are destroyed in
the uppermost part of Col. V, the lengths of their reigns are preserved, and that as the
last two numbers read 'ninety years' and 'one year', they must apply to those of King
Phiops and Menthesuphis, which, in the lists of Manetho and Eratosthenes, have that
marked difference of duration. In the recent reconstruction of the papyrus made by
Dr. Ibscher,> Frag. 43 is placed two lines lower down in Col. V than in Wilkinson's
facsimile, and gives room for three names, now destroyed, between Menthesuphis and
Nitocris. Adding the years on Frag. 61, the entries on Frag. 43 now read:
+~ c:: Q~~~J f~ II Nitocris, 2 years, 1 month, 1 day.
a
(1) • I • I
(2) [+] ~ '}
U I ~J~ [f ~l 1111. I sic I Neferka the child, 4 years, 2 months, 1 day.
(3) [+]~C~~~J~3 f~11 • I • I Nefer, 2 years, I month, I day.
(4) [+~](]J'JrnJ~ [f]~ I • : : : : 'Ib, 1 year, 8 days.
I
This list was followed by a summary of the number of kings comprising Manetho's
Sixth Dynasty and the sum total of years (181) of the Dynasty. If Ibscher's reconstruc-
tion is correct, the number of kings will have been thirteen.
The Abydus List ~Kings~es as imm~iate su~sors~epy I tbe following:
37· 38. 39· 40. 41. 42 •
The $a~~arah List records only four names of Sixth Dynasty kings, Teti, Pepy I,
Merenres, and Neferkares (Pepy II). Of the three royal names after Nitocris in the
Turin List, the first, Neferka 'the child', perhaps corresponds to the Neferkares of the
Abydus List placed after Menkares near the last of the names included in the Sixth
Dynasty. The second, Nefer, may be a scribal error for C~* 0
Nefersahor, who is
known from an inscription at Hetnubs and from graffiti at Tomas! in Nubia. The last
name is 'Ib whose pyramid has been discovered by the Swiss Egyptologist jequiers
among the Pepy II group at Sakkarah, 'Ib's pyramid is situated near that of Neith,? a
queen of Pepy II, and although she bears only the simple name of the Saite goddess in
I Sir Gardner Wilkinson, The Fragments of the Hieratic Papyrus at Turin containing the names of Egyptian
Kings, London, 1851, p. 53.
2 G. Farina, Il Papiro dei Re, Rome, 1938, pl. 4, with p, 32.
3 Dr. Gardiner has kindly told me that in his transcription made many years ago the supposed r
in Wilkin-
son's facsimile is really ~ and so is either! or ~.
4 Anthes, Die Felseninschriften von Hatnub, Leipzig, 1828, pl. 4, with p. 13. Nearby in the quarry are
graffiti of Pepy I, Merenres, and Pepy II.
S Weigall, Antiquities of Lower Nubia, Oxford, 1907, pIs. 56 and 58. There is also a block of alabaster with
the king's name in University College, London (figured in Petrie, History of Eg)'pt, I, 1923 [revised], p. us,
fig. 77). 6 G. Jequier, La Pyramide d'Aba, Cairo, 1935·
7 Id., Les Pyramides des Reines Neit et Apouit, Cairo, 1933.
QUEEN NITOCRIS OF THE SIXTH DYNASTY 53
all the inscriptions of her tomb, she is, I suggest, the original of the famous Nitocris
'Neith is excellent'. Some sixty years ago Petrie 1 touched on the problem of the Third
Pyramid and Nitocris. 'The evidence of Manetho', he wrote, 'is not quite certain in the
mere extracts that we possess; he only mentions that Nitocris built "the Third Pyramid"
without saying where it was; and it is only a presumption that it refers to the same group
as "the largest pyramid", which he mentions twenty reigns earlier. It might have
referredin the full original text to one of the Sakkara groups, where we should naturally
look for works of the sixth dynasty.' It may be noted here that Diodorus Siculus.>
though fully aware that the three pyramids at Glzah were erected by Chemmis (Cheops),
Chephren, and Mycerinus, reports a story current in his time that they were built by
Armaeus.! Amasis, and Inaros ;' there is some doubt as to who the first king was, but
Amasis and Inaros were definitely Saite kings and it is known that the sovereigns of the
Twenty-sixth Dynasty were buried within the precincts of the temple of Neith at Sais.!
It follows, therefore, that this story given by Diodorus must refer, not to the Glzah
pyramids, but to a series of royal tombs at Sais.
Among the titles of Queen N eith are the following:
(1) (0"fDJ~~i1+tJj}::~ Eldest King's-Daughter of Meryres of the Mennefer
pyramid.
(2) 0'I"=-Je ~ 1J. ~~ Hereditary Princess ... of Merenres of the Khasnefer pyramid.
(3) (0~ U)::::-)2.6. ~+;~~ Hereditary Princess, King's-Wife of Neferkares of the
Mensankh pyramid.
Nitocris was therefore the eldest daughter of Pepy I, and accordingly sister or half-
sister of Merenres and Pepy II. She had probably married Merenres" and, after his
decease, the infant Pepy II, when she would have become the virtual ruler of Egypt.
This would agree with the statement of Herodotus that the brother of Nitocris (Merenres)
was king of Egypt, and her marriage to the infant Pepy II? would have given her great power
in the country and thus enabled her to avenge the murder of her brother Merenres.
A portrait of Queen Neith is preserved among the sculptures found by jequier at
Sakkarah, see the figure on p. 54. Above it are four vertical lines of hieroglyphs
giving her name and titles; in front of her face is a partly erased cartouche, with,
to the right of it, the name Neith. If this group of hieroglyphs is closely scrutinized
it will be noticed that it does not appear to have been cut by the same hand as the
hieroglyphs in the vertical column above. The sign Mis differently shaped and is
I Petrie, The Pyramids and Temples of Giseh, London, 1883, p. ISS. 2 I, 63, 64.
3 According to the epitome of Eusebius the first king of Dyn. 26 was Ammeris, Waddell, op. cit., p. 171.
~ Inaros was a son of Psammetichus, a chief of some Libyan tribes to the west of Egypt, cf. Hdt. III, 12 and
IS; Thuc. 1,104. • 5 Hdt. II, 169.
6 She was 0'" under Merenres, but the title 'King's-Wife', if it existed, is not preserved. Dr. Gardiner
--n
has drawn my attention to a fragmentary stela found near Neit's pyramid naming a King's eldest son
~~ ~ __ (Jequier, op, cit. 55, fig. 32 ) which I had overlooked. I suggest that this monument must have been
sculptured before he came to the throne; for the nomen is not in a cartouche.
7 It is known that Pepy II was an infant when he came to the throne. The Turin Papyrus gives him 9 0 + ?
years; Manetho (Waddell, op. cit., p. 53) says Phiops (Pepy II) began to reign at the age of six and continued
till his hundredth year.
54 PERCY E. NEWBERRY
without the details of the cord binding the two bows, as will be seen from the figure
below. It is, moreover, remarkable that the queen's name is given twice in the same
scene, first above her head and then
again in front of her face. The
cartouche appears to be cut on a
slightly lower surface of the wall
than the vertical columns above; it
has been partly defaced but 0~ U
is clearly recognizable. In the photo-
graph reproduced in pl. 5 of Je-
quier's book (which is much better
than the outline drawing in pI. 4)
I think that I can see traces of the
upper corner of a E5-sign below the
0. If these slight traces could be
confirmed by an inspection of the
slab, the cartouche would read
(0E5 U )r Menkares, which is No. 4 1
of the Abydus List and follows the
otherwise unknown Neterkarer, If
the cartouche had been Neferkarer,
---
--- why should it have been partially
defaced? If the inscription had given the title of the queen it would have been
written with the king's prenomen followed by the name of his pyramid and t ~ 'King's-
Wife', for this was the customary way of writing the title in the latter part of the
Sixth Dynasty. In my view it is much more probable that the partly erased cartouche
and the duplication of the queen's name were carved when Neith became virtual ruler
of Egypt at the time of Pepy II's infancy, and that the cartouche was mutilated
at some later period by a priest who regarded her as an illegitimate sovereign. I do
not think that the absence of the title ~0 'Daughter of Re<' above the cartouche,
or the fact that Neith's name is not enclosed in a cartouche, militates against the
view that Menkares was the prenomen of the queen, for it is not until the end of the
Twelfth Dynasty that we find a royal woman's nomen written in a cartouche. If
N eith's prenomen was Menkares, this may have been the reason for her having been
confused with Menkaures (Mycerinus), the builder of the Third Pyramid at Gizah, as
Lieblein (Recherches sur la Chronologie Egyptienne, 1873, 40) and Petrie (Hist. I, 1894,
195) suggested.
I In the cartouches of the Old Kingdom no - is written under E5 on any contemporary monument.
