Tausret

 ( 12th-century Bc Pharaohs ) 

Tausret, also spelled Tawosret or Twosret (d. 1189 BCE) was the last known ruler and the final pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt.

She is recorded in Manetho's Epitome as "Thuoris, who in Homer is called Polybus, husband of Alcandra, and in whose time Troy was taken."J. Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt, 2006, Thames & Hudson She was said to have ruled Egypt for seven years, but this figure included the nearly six-year reign of Siptah, her predecessor.Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss & David Warburton (editors), Handbook of Ancient Egyptian Chronology, Brill: 2006, p. 214 Tausret simply assumed Siptah's regnal years as her own.

While her sole independent reign would have lasted for perhaps one to one and a half years, from 1191-89 BC, this number now appears more likely to be two full years instead, possibly longer. Excavation work by the University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition on her memorial temple ("temple of millions of years") at Gournah strongly suggests that it was completed and functional during her reign and that Tausret started a regnal year 9, which means that she had two and possibly three independent years of rule, once one deducts the nearly six-year reign of Siptah. Her royal name, Sitre Meryamun, means "Daughter of Re, beloved of Amun."Clayton, p. 158

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Family Twosret or Tausret's birth date is unknown. She did not hold title of "King's Daughter", meaning she was not daughter of any Pharaoh and her later claim to kingship would come solely through her marriage to Seti II.

Kara Cooney (2025). 9781426219771, National Geographic. ISBN 9781426219771

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Queen consort She was thought to be the second royal wife of Seti II. There are no children for Tausret and Seti II, unless tomb KV56 represents the burial of their daughter.Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, 1987

Theodore Davis identified Tausret and her husband in a cache of jewelry found in tomb KV56 in the Valley of the Kings. This tomb also contained objects bearing the name of Rameses II. There is no consensus about the nature of this tomb. Some (Aldred) thought this was the tomb of a daughter of Seti II and Tawosret, but others (Maspero) thought this was a cache of objects originally belonging with the tomb of Tawosret herself.

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Regent After her husband's death, she became first regent to Seti's heir Siptah jointly with Chancellor Bay, a Aamu. Siptah was likely a stepson of Tausret since his mother is now known to be a certain Sutailja or Shoteraja from Louvre Relief E 26901.Gae Callender, The Cripple, the Queen & the Man from the North, KMT Volume 17, No.1 (Spring 2006), p. 52

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Pharaoh When Siptah died, Tausret officially assumed the throne for herself as the "Daughter of Re, Lady of Ta-merit, Twosret of Mut",Tydlesey, Joyce (2006) "The Complete Queens of Egypt"(American University in Cairo Press) and assumed the role of a Pharaoh.

While it was commonly believed that she ruled Egypt with the aid of Chancellor Bay, a recently published document by Pierre Grandet in a BIFAO 100 (2000) paper shows that Bay was executed on Siptah's orders during Year 5 of this king's reign. The document is a hieratic ostracon or inscribed Sherd and contains an announcement to the workmen of Deir al Madinah of the king's actions. No immediate reason was given to show what caused Siptah to turn against "the great enemy Bay," as the ostracon states. The recto of the document reads thus:

Year 5 III Shemu the 27th. On this day, the scribe of the tomb Paser came announcing 'Pharaoh, life, prosperity, and health!, has killed the great enemy Bay'.Pierre Grandet, " target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> L'execution du chancelier Bay O.IFAO 1864", BIFAO 100 (2000), pp. 339-345

This date accords well with Bay's last public appearance in Year 4 of Siptah. The ostracon's information was essentially a royal order for the workmen to stop all further work on Bay's tomb since the latter had now been deemed a traitor to the state.Gae Callender, The Cripple, the Queen & the Man from the North, KMT, Spring 2006, p. 54 Aidan Dodson believes that Tausret engineered Bay's downfall so that she would have total control at the palace court and need no longer share power with her political rival. As Dodson writes:

Meanwhile, Egyptian territories in Canaan seem to have become effectively independent under the overlordship of a man called Irsu. Papyrus Harris I, the main source on these events, claims that Irsu and Tausret had allied themselves, leaving Irsu free to plunder and neglect the land.Hans Goedicke, "Irsu the Khasu in Papyrus Harris", Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Vol. 71 (1979), pp. 1-17

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Reign length Tausret's highest known date is a Year 8 II Shemu day 29 hieratic inscription found on one of the foundation blocks (FB 2) of her mortuary temple at Gournah in 2011 by the University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition.Now labeled Foundation Block Text 4. See Richard H. Wilkinson, “ Tausert Temple Project: 2010-11 Season,” The Ostracon: The Journal of the Egyptian Study Society, 22 (Fall 2011), 8, fig. 4. Additional foundation inscriptions were discovered in previous seasons. Foundation Block Text 2 was found in the 2007 excavation season and bears the date “Regnal Year seven, I Akhet 23,” this is the earliest dated inscription found at the temple, so construction most likely began late in the latter half of year seven. The original publication with a mistranslation of this inscription is idem, "Tausert Temple Project: 2007 Season," The Ostracon, 18, No. 1 (Summer 2007), 7, fig. 9. The corrected translation appears in idem, “Tausert Temple Project: 2008 Season,” The Ostracon, 19, No. 1 (Fall 2008), p. 7. Since this was only a foundation inscription and Tausret's temple, although never finished as planned, was at least partially completed, it is logical to assume that some time must have passed before her downfall and the termination of work on her temple project. Richard Wilkinson stressed that Tausret's mortuary temple was "largely structurally completed," although bearing minimal decoration;Richard H. Wilkinson, “History of the Temple,” in The Temple of Tausret: The University of Arizona Egyptian Expedition Tausret Temple Project, 2004-2011, p. 166. Therefore, she would have ruled for one or two more years beyond II Shemu 29 of her 8th Year for her temple to reach completion. As Richard Wilkinson wrote in 2011:

Further study by Pearce Paul Creasman has concluded that the temple was "functionally operational before its destruction."Pearce Paul Creasman, " Excavations at Pharaoh-Queen Tausret's Temple of Millions of Years: 2012 Season PDF," Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 39 (2012/2013), p. 15. Tausret could, hence, have possibly ruled for 6 to 20 more months after the inscription date to achieve these levels of completion, thus starting her 9th regnal year around the interval of IV Akhet/I Peret—when her husband died (since she assumed Siptah's reign as her own) or perhaps longer—before Setnakhte's rule began. Or she could have had a nearly full 9th-year reign, including the 6-year reign of Siptah. Pearce Creasman writes in 2013, "if the foundations of Tausret's were laid in her eighth year and construction of the temple was completed, or nearly so, Tausret must have ruled long enough past her eighth regnal year to see this accomplished. At least an additional year, maybe two."Pearce Creasman, An Elusive Female Pharaoh and Her “Temple of Millions of Years", Newsletter of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, 2013, p. 2

A vase bearing the cartouche of Tausret was found at Tell Deir Alla in JordanPascal Vernus et Jean Yoyotte, Dictionnaire des pharaons, Perrin, 2004, p.270 and a silicified sandstone statue found at Heliopolis represents Tausert whose names are inscribed with a mixture of masculine and feminine epithets. Tausert herself is represented as a woman, with the inscription she who is "beloved of Hathor, Lady of the Red Mountain."Claude Vandersleyen, L'Égypte et la Vallée du Nil : De la fin de l'Ancien Empire à la fin du Nouvel Empire, t. 2, Paris, PUF, coll. « Nouvelle Clio », 1995, p.585

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End of Tausret's reign Tausret's reign ended in a civil war, documented in the Elephantine stela of her successor Setnakhte, who became the founder of the Twentieth dynasty. While it is not known if she was overthrown by Setnakhte or whether she died peacefully in her own reign and a conflict broke out at court over her succession; the former scenario is the most likely. Her immediate 20th dynasty successor Setnakhte and his son Ramesses III described the late 19th dynasty as a time of chaos. Setnakhte usurped the joint KV14 tomb of Seti II and Tausret but reburied Seti II in tomb KV15, while deliberately replastering and redrawing all images of Tausret in tomb KV14 with those of himself. Setnakhte's decisions here may demonstrate his dislike and presumably hatred for Tausret since he chose to reinter Seti II but not Tausret.Hartwig Altenmüller, "The Tomb of Tausert and Setnakht," in Valley of the Kings, ed. Kent R. Weeks (New York: Friedman/Fairfax Publishers, 2001), pp. 222-31

Setnakhte himself does not seem to have harboured any animosity towards Siptah. Tausret likely erased Siptah's own royal cartouches in his KV47 royal tomb and replaced the cartouches of Siptah with those of Seti II in KV14, Tausret's own tomb, once she had presumably begun her own reign as pharaoh. As Dodson writes:

"Taken together, it seems that although Tawosret appears to have granted Siptah a burial, it was one that denied his status as a king, and was combined with Tawosret’s desire to refocus her royal affiliations on her husband, rather than the young man for whom she had ruled for half a decade."Dodson, Poisoned Legacy, p. 111

Setnakhte, however, reinstated Siptah's cartouches in the young king's tomb which suggests that this person's opponent was not Siptah but rather Siptah's successor, Tausret.Dodson, Poisoned Legacy, pp. 111 & 121-122 It appears most likely that Setnakhte overthrew Tausret from power in a civil war. Setnakhte's son and successor, Ramesses III, later decided to exclude both Tausret and even Siptah of the 19th dynasty from his Medinet Habu list of Egyptian kings thereby delegitimizing them in the eyes of the Egyptian citizenry.Epigraphic Survey, Medinet Habu IV: Festival Scenes of Ramesses III, University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications, vol. 51 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1940), pl. 203. Cf. Donald B. Redford, Pharaonic King-Lists, Annals, and Day-Books: A Contribution to the Study of the Egyptian Sense of History, SSEA Publication 4 (Mississauga, Canada: Benben Publications, 1986), pp. 36-37 target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Medinet Habu Canon

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Destruction of Tausret's mortuary temple and reuse of her tomb Pearce Creasman writes in 2013 that Tausret's 20th dynasty successors felt the overwhelming need to usurp her KV14 tomb and comprehensively destroy her mortuary temple. Tausret was one of the last ruling descendants of Ramesses II (the Great) of the 19th dynasty and the founders of the 20th dynasty of Egypt, presumably feared the shadow cast by this female pharaoh. Therefore,

"the founder of the 20th Dynasty, Setnakhte, or his long-ruling son, Ramesses III, set out against Tausret's memory and its physical manifestations. This dramatic refutation of the legitimacy of their unrelated 19th Dynasty predecessor likely made it easier for their own lineage to take root and overpower what must have been a substantial number of other potential claimants to the throne. Ramesses II, from whom Tausret is generally believed to be descended, had fathered as many as 100 children. Tausret’s royal cousins, and potential heirs, must have been legion....The attacks on Tausret’s monuments proved effective, so much so that when the site of Tausret's Theban temple was very briefly surveyed and selectively dug in 1896 by a team under the supervision of Flinders Petrie, “only a few stones of the foundation remained.”Pearce Creasman, An Elusive Female Pharaoh and Her “Temple of Millions of Years", Newsletter of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, 2013, p. 1

Tausret's KV14 tomb in the Valley of the Kings has a complicated history; it was started in the reign of Seti II. Tomb scenes show Tausret accompanying Siptah, but Siptah's name had later been replaced by that of Seti II presumably by Tausret who wished to associate herself with her late husband. The tomb was then usurped by Setnakhte, and extended to become one of the deepest royal tombs in the valley while Tausret's sarcophagus was reused by prince Amenherkhepeshef in KV13. Hartwig Altenmuller believes that Seti II was buried in one of the rooms in KV14 and later reburied in KV15. Others question this scenario.

A mummy found in KV35 and known as Unknown Woman D has been identified by some scholars as possibly belonging to Tausret, but there is no other evidence for this other than the correct Nineteenth Dynasty period of mummification.

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Monuments and inscriptions It is believed that expeditions were conducted during her reign to the turquoise mines in Sinai and in Palestine and statues have been found of her at Heliopolis and Thebes. Her name is also found at Abydos, Hermopolis, Memphis, and in Nubia.

Inscriptions with Tausret's name appear in several locations:

• The Bilgai Stela belonged to Tausret. It records the erection of a monument in the area of Sebennytos.
• A pair statue of Tawosret and Siptah is now in the Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst Munich (no 122). Siptah is shown seated on Tausret's lap.J. von Beckerath: Queen Twosre as guardian of Siptah, in: Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 48 (1962), 70-74
• In the temple at Amada, Tausret is depicted as a Great Royal Wife and God's Wife.Vivienne G. Callender, Queen Tausret and the End of Dynasty 19, Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur, Bd. 32, (2004), pp. 81-104
• A statue from Heliopolis depicts Tausret and her names are inscribed with a mixture of male and female epithets. Tausret herself is depicted as a woman.
• A cartouche of hers believed to come from Qantir in the Delta has been found
• Tausret and Siptah's names have been found associated with the turquoise mines at Serabit el Khadim and Timna (in the Sinai Peninsula & Palestine).Itamar Singer, Merneptah's Campaign to Canaan, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 269 (Feb., 1988), pp. 1-10
• A faience vase bearing a cartouche of Tausret was found at Tell Deir Alla in Jordan.
• Tausret constructed a Mortuary temple next to the Ramesseum, but it was never finished and was only partially excavated (by Flinders Petrie in 1897), although recent re-excavation by Richard H. Wilkinson and Pearce Paul Creasman shows it is more complex than first thought. The temple was excavated by the Tausert Temple Project (2004 to present).

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Bibliography

• Gae Callender, "The Cripple, the Queen & the Man from the North", KMT, Vol: 17 No. 1, Spring 2006, pp. 49–63
• Leonard H. Lesko, "A Little More Evidence for the End of the Nineteenth Dynasty", Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 5, (1966), pp. 29–32 (accessible through JSTOR)
• Richard H. Wilkinson, (eds), target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> THE TEMPLE OF TAUSRET: Tausret Temple Project, 2004-2011 The University of Arizona Archaeology Expedition, 2011. (Dated texts found in the Temple are placed on pages 121-130)
• Richard H. Wilkinson (ed.), Tausret: Forgotten Queen & Pharaoh of Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2012.

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