Neferuptah


Neferuptah or Ptahneferu was a daughter of the Egyptian king Amenemhat III of the 12th Dynasty. Her sister was the female Pharaoh Sobekneferu.

Biography

Neferuptah was one of the first royal women whose name was written inside a cartouche. Although she never had the title 'king's wife', she must have had a special status; it is possible she was regarded as a future ruler.
Her titles included member of the elite, great of favour, great of praise, and beloved king's daughter of his body.
A burial for her was prepared in the tomb of her father at Hawara. However, she was not buried there, but in a small pyramid at Hawara. Her tomb was found intact by an Egyptian team under Nagib Farag and Zaky
Iskander in 1956 which was located about 2 kilometres from the pyramid of her father and still contained her jewellery, a granite sarcophagus, three silver vases, and other objects.
The granite sarcophagus was inscribed with a short offering formula. Inside the sarcophagus were found the decayed remains of two wooden coffins. The outer one was decorated with inscribed gold foil. Identical inscriptions were found on the sarcophagus of Queen Hatshepsut, who lived about 300 years later. Her tomb is mentioned on a papyrus found at Lahun. She is depicted next to her father in the temple at Medinet Madi. Objects belonging to her include a sphinx of black granite and the fragment of a statue found on Elephantine.
In an important 2017 paper titled "" in Cahiers Caribéens d’Egyptologie 22, the German Egyptologist Wolfram Grajetzki notes that Princess Neferuptah was actually provided with two separate burials. Grajetzki wrote that Neferuptah's earlier burial was previously already known from the 19th century with the discovery of the:
Grajetzki surmises that Nefeuptah likely had "two burials, one in the pyramid of her father and another about two kilometres apart "--with the first burial being a dummy burial. This explains why the 1956 discovery of Neferuptah's intact tomb 2 kilometres from her father's pyramid:

Attestations

Granite Sphinx, Cairo TN 13.12.24.4
Hereditary Princess, King's Daughter
Relief, Amenemhat III temple in Medinet Madi
Mentions Amenemhat III, Hotepti and Neferuptah.