Thanks to these important female figures, the kings of Egypt included in themselves, as the gods, the male and female principles.
The women besides, could govern the country and seize the royal scepters as men and become real sovereigns. Both male-pharaohs and female-pharaohs were permeated with the divine essence which passed to the heir apparent. This transmission happened through incest, that guaranteed the passage of the divine essence from the parents to the children. Though it wasn’t a rule, in the history of Ancient Egypt there were various cases of unions between brothers and sisters and fathers and daughters according to the “model” of the Egyptian pantheon, where royal couples made by brother and sister generated other divine couples.
The queens had also an important role as mothers or royal brides from the archaic epoch; their importance is showed from the fact that even if during the first dynasties only the pharaoh had a monumental tomb, there were “female” exceptions to this rule.
One of these is represented by Neithotep, a female figure quite mysterious, considered one of the first queens in Egypt, maybe Narmer’s wife and probably the king Aha’s mother. Neithotep had a great tomb in Naqada, an impressive and magnificent building. Another exception is Merneith, of whom two monuments have been found, one in Sakkara and the other in Abydos.
These constructions are not different for size nor for architecture from the ones from the sovereigns of the I dynasty, in fact they are the most beautiful of the epoch Among the other important queens in egypt, we find Nemaathop, who lived during the II dynasty and was king Khasekhemui’s wife, and three Meresankh, who lived in the III and the IV dynasty. One of them was Unas’s second wife and concubine, while concerning the others, it’s not known exactly who was really Chefren’s wife.
Also Hetepheres should be remembered, she was pharaoh Cheope’s mother.
Among the women instead who reigned over Egypt, as real pharaohs, there are Nitocris, who closed the VI dynasty, and Sobeknefru who ended the XII dynasty.
Ahhotep I passed to history as the warrior queen and had a fundamental role in the long battle for the liberation against the Hyksos in the XVIII dynasty we point out queen Nefertari and the woman-pharaoh Hatshepsut, followed by queens and royal brides Teie, Nefertiti and Ankhsenamon. The successive dynasty presents queen Tuya, Sethi’s I wife and Ramses’s II mother. The list of queens met up to now ends with Twosre, Sethy’s II wife, a female figure really enigmatic who ascended to the throne reigning as a pharaoh and who ended a period of dynastic battles and finally with Cleopatra, last queen in Egypt, her great love with Cesar and Marc Anthony, and the end of the Egyptian empire.