| Description: | By the Eighteenth Dynasty, however, the arts reinstated the goddess symbols of horns, sun disk, uraeus snake, and vulture in depictions of female royalty. "From then onwards," as E. O. James has written, "royal heiresses became increasingly prominent in Egypt. Hereditary queens bore the titles 'Royal Daughter,' 'Royal Sister,' 'Great Royal Wife,' 'Hereditary Princess,' 'Lady of the Two Lands,' as well as 'God's Wife.'" The title of "Divine Wife," for example, was assumed by Queen Neferu of the Eleventh Dynasty (2100 B.C.); and Ahhotep, the mother of Ahmose I, who was founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty, was described as the "God's Wife." Thus the designation of the queen both as the wife of the pharaoh in the incarnation of Re, and as chief priestess of Re, was continued. |
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