Sobekneferu
Sobekneferu or Neferusobek was the first confirmed queen regnant of ancient Egypt and the last pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty and of the Middle Kingdom. Her reign was brief, lasting three years, 10 months, and 24 days according to the Turin Canon in the 18th century BC. She distinguished herself from any potential prior female rulers by adopting the full royal titulary, being the first ruler to be associated with the crocodile god Sobek in her nomen, and being the only one to associate herself with Sobek through her praenomen.
Sobekneferu ascended to the throne following the death of Amenemhat IV, possibly her brother or husband, though the nature of their relationship is unproven and she asserted legitimacy through her father, Amenemhat III. Contemporary evidence for her reign is scant: There are a few partial statues – one with her face, now lost – and a small corpus of inscriptions that have been preserved. The Northern Mazghuna pyramid is presumed to have been intended for her, though this assignment is speculative with no firm evidence to confirm it. The monument was abandoned immediately after its substructure was completed and no burial ever interred. A papyrus discovered in Harageh mentions a place called Sekhem Sobekneferu that may refer to the pyramid. Her rule is also attested to on several king lists.
Family
Sobekneferu is thought to be the daughter of Amenemhat III, but her mother's identity is unknown. Amenemhat III had two known wives, Aat and an unnamed queen, both buried in his pyramid at Dahshur. He had at least one other daughter, Neferuptah, who had a burial at his second pyramid at Hawara that was eventually moved to her own pyramid. The enclosure of Neferuptah's name in a cartouche suggests that she may have been groomed for the throne. The burials of three other princesses – Hathorhotep, Nubhotepet, and Sithathor – were found at the Dahshur complex, but it is unclear whether these princesses were his daughters because the complex was used for royal burials throughout the Thirteenth Dynasty.Amenemhat III's heir, Amenemhat IV, is attested to be the son of Hetepti, though her titulary lacks reference to her being a 'king's wife'. The relationship between Amenemhat IV and Sobekneferu remains unclear. According to the ancient historian Manetho in Aegyptiaca they were brother and sister. According to Gae Callender they were also probably married, although neither the title of 'king's sister' nor 'king's wife' are attested for Sobekneferu. Sobekneferu's accession may have been motivated by a lack of a male heir for Amenemhat IV; though there are two kings of the Thirteenth Dynasty, Sekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep|Amenemhat Sobekhotep and Sekhemkare Amenemhat Senebef|Amenemhat Senebef, that share his nomen and that could there-in be his sons. In this case, Sobekneferu may have took the throne following Amenemhat IV's death because she perceived them to be illegitimate.
Reign
By the time of Sobekneferu's accession to the throne, the Middle Kingdom was in decline. It had peaked during the reigns of Senusret III and Amenemhat III. Senusret III formed the basis for the legendary character Sesostris described by Manetho and Herodotus, led military expeditions into Nubia and Syria-Palestine, and built a mudbrick pyramid as his funerary monument. He reigned for 39 years, as evidenced by an inscription in Abydos where he was buried. Amenemhat III, presided over a peaceful Egypt and dedicated his efforts to monumental constructions, the development of Faiyum, mining expeditions, and the building of two pyramids at Dahshur and at Hawara. He reigned for at least 45 years, probably longer. These long reigns may have left behind a succession crisis, but there is no evidence for a collapse like in the Old Kingdom. Amenemhat IV ruled for nine or ten years, but there is scant information regarding his reign though he may well have been of advanced age by the time he ascended the throne.It is to this backdrop that Sobekneferu acquired the throne. She is the earliest confirmed woman to rule Egypt as a 'female king' and the first to adopt the full royal titulary. She was also the first ruler associated with the crocodile god Sobek by name, whose identity appears in both her given nomen and chosen praenomen. She reigned for around four years, but as with her predecessor, there are few surviving records. Her death brought a close to the Twelfth Dynasty and began the Second Intermediate Period spanning the following two centuries.
This period is poorly understood owing to the paucity of references to the rulers of the time. She was succeeded by either Sobekhotep I or Wegaf, who inaugurated the Thirteenth Dynasty. Stephen Quirke proposed, based on the numerosity of kingships and brevity of their rule, that a rotating succession of kings from Egypt's most powerful families took the throne. They retained Itỉ-tawy as their capital through the Thirteenth Dynasty. Their role, however, was relegated to a reduced status and power rested within the administration. It is generally accepted that Egypt remained unified until late into the dynasty. Kim Ryholt proposes that the Fourteenth Dynasty arose in the Nile Delta at the end of Sobekneferu's reign as a rival to the Thirteenth. Thomas Schneider argues that the evidence for this hypothesis is weak.
Attestations
Contemporary sources
Graffiti and seals
Only a small collection of sources attest to Sobekneferu's rule as pharaoh of Egypt. In Nubia, a graffito in the fortress of Kumma records the height of the Nile inundation at during her third regnal year. Another inscription discovered in the Eastern Desert records 'year 4, second month of the Season of the Emergence'.The British Museum has a fine cylinder seal bearing her name and royal titulary in its collection. The seal is made of glazed steatite and measures long with a diameter of. There is a faded green faience cylinder from Faiyum in the collection of Farouk I carrying two columns of inscriptions, with the first bearing her name and title and the second formulaic writing. There is another cylinder seal from the collection of Fuad I, now in the Cairo Museum, which curiously places nsw-bity before Sobekneferu's nomen sbk-šdt-nfrw instead of her praenomen kꜣ-sbk-rꜥ. Sydney Aufrère notes that by the reign of Senusret II the kingly title had rigidified in presentation before the praenomen and thus proposes that Sobekneferu's may rather have been sbk-šdt-nfrw considering that there are several instances of that pairing. There is record of a further partial cylinder seal with Sobekneferu's titles probably in the private collection of a 'Mr. Nash from Margate'.
The British Museum also possesses an inscribed scarab bearing Sobekneferu's name, made of glazed steatite, and measuring by and in height. There is a second scarab from the Grant Collection recorded in Historical scarabs and History by Flinders Petrie.
Statuary
Several headless statues of Sobekneferu have been identified. One is a quartzite torso of an originally life-size statue, held by the Louvre in Paris. It was purchased by the Louvre Museum in 1973, but its provenance is unknown. The remnant – which is missing the head, arms, and lower body – measures vertically, frontally, and sagitally. In its iconography it blends feminine and masculine dress: She wears the typical female sheath dress with straps attached reaching over the shoulders and covering her breasts over which she has a šnḏwt kilt held by a belt bearing an inscription and a strip of apron that covers the genital region usually worn by men. On her chest rests a bivalve shell pendant like those that appear on statues of Senusret III and Amenemhat III. Finally, the statue bears the royal nms, of which only the striated lappets survive, that identifies the subject as a ruler. Owing to the condition of the statue it is impossible to determine the pose being depicted, though it may have been the subject in prayer with her hands laid flat upon the kilt.Three apparently life-sized basalt or greywacke statues of Sobekneferu were found in Tell ed-Dab'a: two depict her in a seated posture trampling the Nine Bows, representing the subjugation of Egypt's enemies, while the third depicts her kneeling. The two seated statues were probably originally identical, though they were severely damaged by the time of their discovery. The better preserved tall statue retains the lower half, while the less preserved tall statue has additionally lost the subject's feet and pedestal. The surviving inscription commends her to Sobek of Shedyt, an important centre since Amenemhat III and an indicator that the statue might originate from Faiyum. The kneeling statue is also partial, retaining the lower of the whole, but displays the great ability of the work's executor to capture the motion of subject: She is planted firmly upon the plinth in the ball of her feet and knees, her mass resting on her heels and hands in her lap, before an inscription run right-to-left commending her to 'Sobek of Shedyt' and 'Horus residing in Shedyt, foremost of the Palace Lake', and wishing that she, the King of the Two Lands, may live. The locations of all three statues is unknown. There is also a headless black basalt, granite, or granodiorite sphinx originally discovered by Édouard Naville in Qantir bearing a damaged inscription determined to be kꜣ-sbk-rꜥ the praenomen of Sobekneferu. The sphinx's current location is also unknown.
The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin has a fragment of an alabaster statue base that bears the names of Amenemhat III and Sobekneferu enclosed in rectangles.
One statuette of Sobekneferu with her visage is known. It was bequeathed to the Egyptian Museum of Berlin by 'Dr. Deibel' in 1899 but was lost during World War II. Its existence is confirmed by photographs and plaster casts. The fragment measures wide by deep and is high. It is variously described as being made of steatite, slate, or greywacke. It is uninscribed, and thus carries no name. It depicts a woman wearing a Hathor wig and has a hole in the skull that appears to exist to receive a headdress, possibly a crown. The style dates the work to the late Twelfth to Thirteenth Dynasty. It fits with the lower part of a seated statuette, discovered at Semna and held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The lower fragment is described as being either slate or steatite. This fragment measures wide by deep and high. The statuette depicts a woman with her hands on her lap seated upon a throne which bears the royal symbol smꜣ tꜣwy flanked by plants representing Upper and Lower Egypt on each side.
Buildings
Sobekneferu's monumental works consistently associate her with Amenemhat III rather than Amenemhat IV, supporting the theory that she was the royal daughter of Amenemhat III and perhaps only a stepsister to Amenemhat IV, whose mother was not royal. Contemporary sources show that Sobekneferu adopted only the 'king's daughter' title, further supporting this hypothesis. An example of such an association comes from a limestone block of 'the Labyrinth' of the pyramid at Hawara that bears both Amenemhat III and Sobekneferu's names. The inscription also contains the only known reference to a goddess Dḥdḥt. Three further inscriptions found at Hawara by Karl Richard Lepsius contain cartouche fragments that have been reconstructed with Sobekneferu's name. There is a granite block found by Flinders Petrie that bears no name, but can be connected to Sobekneferu by its content which reads '... her monument to her father forever'. There is also a section of a red granite column bearing the serekhs of Amenemhat III and Sobekneferu from Hawara. Above each serekh stands a Horus falcon: The Horus of Amenemhat III carries a composite of an ꜥnḫ sign and ḏd pillar, representing life and stability respectively, that it presents to the Horus of Sobekneferu. This imagery indicates that Amenemhat III had already been deified before the column was built. It also reflects its purpose to legitimise the reign of Sobekneferu by securing her predecessor's favour. Julia Budka additionally notes that the evidence from Hawara suggests that the Labyrinth was completed during Sobekneferu's reign. By contrast, Amenemhat IV's name does not appear at Hawara.There is evidence that she built in Heracleopolis Magna. There is a destroyed 'temple of Kom el-Akareb', south of the temple of Haryshef, that remains unidentified. It appears to be oriented towards the pyramid of Senusret II which may indicate a Middle Kingdom origin. The portico of this temple is partially preserved. In 1915, Georges Daressy discovered a pair of colossi that Ramesses II – and later Merneptah – had appropriated from an earlier Twelfth Dynasty pharaoh – potentially Senusret III, based on a third colossus from this king that was found in 2011, or Amenemhat IV. Whilst excavating, Daressy found a red granite architrave bearing Sobekneferu's names reused in the temple's pillars. Four more granite papyriform columns bear Sobekneferu's inscriptions, while a further ten granite beams may originate from the same source.
Uncertain attestations
In Israel, a possible reference to Sobekneferu before her accession is found in a statue base discovered in Gezer in 1971. The statue fragment made of granite gneiss measures wide by deep and rises to a height of. It is partial preserving only the pedestal and feet of the subject with identical, albeit very fragmentary, inscriptions on either side. The inscription bears her nomen and identifies her as a sꜣt nsw or 'king's daughter'. There are nevertheless multiple candidate subjects for the statue: Sobekneferu, daughter of Senusret I; Sobekneferu, daughter of Amenemhat III; or a third as yet unknown Sobekneferu.A damaged statuette of a woman in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has been suggested to represent Sobekneferu, though this assignment is unconfirmed. The schist statuette measures vertically, frontally, and sagitally. The woman's face is badly damaged, retaining only the features of her brow, left eye, cheek, and traces of her nose. She wears a shoulder-length globular wig which frames her ears, and a crown composed of a uraeus – now headless – and two vultures with outstretched wings which is of unknown iconography. The figure was probably seated, her arms were crossed across her chest with the left hand alone protruding from beneath her ḥb-sd cloak pulled taught revealing her chest and shoulders. This posture and garb are attested in a handful of Third and Fourth Dynasty reliefs and a statue of royal women, and it omits the symbols of royal authority, the wꜣs scepter and ḥḏt crown, suggesting the subject may be a royal mother rather than a pharaoh. The statuette proves difficult to place in context: The style of the ears and eyelids preclude a dating earlier than the reign of Senusret III; however, the presence of archaic features from the Old Kingdom is unattested in the late Middle Kingdom, suggesting a later dating when both Old and Middle Kingdom styles were in vogue, particularly between the Twenty-Second and Twenty-Sixth Dynasties. There is a granite statuette head found in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen that, though substantially worn, bears the same style globular wig and uraeus – whether it also shares the vulture iconography is indeterminable – to the MET statue placing the two statues as contemporaneous, which is easier to explain if both date to the late Middle Kingdom.
A statue-head in the MET, discovered in a burial shaft south of the causeway of the pyramid of Amenemhat I at El Lisht, of a Twelfth Dynasty king which remains unassigned, though candidates include Amenemhat I, III, IV, Senusret III, and Sobekneferu. The tall limestone head's style is akin to those from late in Amenemhat III's reign and it may belong to a shrine from the same pyramid of which a partial limestone lintel, measuring high by wide, bearing Amenemhat IV's name and titles has been recovered. The image bears a striking resemblance to Amenemhat IV, but has softer, more feminine features and is free of the wrinkles and depressions that characterise the bridge of Amenemhat IV's nose, leading Simon Connor to propose that it may instead belong to Sobekneferu.
A king's face from a statue of unknown provenance may speculatively represent Sobekneferu. The object was bequeathed to The MET by Louisine W. Havemeyer in 1929 at which time it was identified as bearing the likeness of Amenemhat III. That attribution remains the norm. The face is 1:3 scale with a height of carved into a grey marble. The face is remarkably intact though beyond that only small fragments of the royal nms headdress are present and nothing below the neckline. William Hayes assigned the sculpture to the 'expressive style' of Amenemhat III's sculptural tradition for its idealistic presentation of the young subject and contrasted it against a much later statue-head in black granite that portrayed him with 'utter and unrelenting realism'. The face is wrinkle-free, with a defined bone structure and slight traces of loose skin; the nose has a slight characteristic arch with a bulbous tip; the lower lip bears a distinct depression; and the eyes are formed into the almond shape recognisable in late Twelfth Dynasty portraiture. Dorothea Arnold writes that the face displays 'an unmistakable femine character' that made it 'tempting to identify the pharaoh represented as Queen Sobekneferu'.
Historical sources
In the Thutmosid period, she is mentioned on the Karnak list of early Egyptian kings. In the Ramesside period, she is mentioned in the Saqqara Tablet, and Turin Canon, but is conspicuously excluded from the Abydos King List. Her exclusion, along with all other female kings, pharaohs of the First and Second Intermediate Periods, and of the Amarna Period, is an indicator of whom Seti I and Ramesses II viewed as the legitimate rulers of Egypt. She is credited in the Turin Canon with a reign of 3 years, 10 months, and 24 days. In the Hellenistic period, she is mentioned by Manetho as 'Skemiophris', where she is credited with a reign of four years.Impact on kingly naming practices
Sobekneferu's adoption of the crocodile god Sobek was quite influential despite her brief reign since 10 future Egyptian kings from Sobekhotep I, Sobekhotep II, both Sobekhotep III and Sobekhotep IV – who are considered by Kim Ryholt to be some of the most powerful kings of the succeeding Thirteenth Dynasty of Egypt along with Neferhotep I – as well as Merhotepre Sobekhotep or Sobekhotep V, Khahotepre Sobekhotep VI and Sobekhotep VII all followed her practise by using the god Sobek in their royal name or nomen. Furthermore, in the Theban Sixteenth Dynasty of Egypt, king Sobekhotep VIII also used the god Sobek in his royal name. Finally, during the clearly Theban Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt, both kings Sobekemsaf I and Sobekemsaf II also adopted Sobekneferu's practise by using the god Sobek in their royal names. Therefore, Sobekneferu's reign was far more impactful on future Egyptian kingship naming practices despite her brief reign.Burial
Sobekneferu's tomb has not yet been positively identified. A place called Sekhem Sobekneferu is mentioned on a papyrus found at Harageh which may be the name of her pyramid. On a funerary stela from Abydos, now in Marseille, there is mention of a storeroom administrator of Sobekneferu named Heby. The stela dates to the 13th Dynasty and attests to an ongoing funerary cult.The Northern Mazghuna pyramid is assumed to be her monument, though there is no clear evidence to confirm this assignment and the structure may date to a later period. Only its substructure was completed; construction of the superstructure and wider temple complex was never begun. The substructure passages had a complex plan: A stairway descended south from the east side of the pyramid leading to a square chamber which connected to the next sloping passage leading west to a portcullis – that consisted of a quartzite block intended to slide into and block the passage – beyond which the passage wound through several more turns and a second, smaller portcullis before terminating at the antechamber. South of this lay the burial chamber which was near wholly occupied by a quartzite monolith vessel for a sarcophagus. In a deep recess lay the quartzite lid which was to be slid into place over the coffin and locked in place by a stone block. All of the exposed surfaces were painted red with additional lines of black paint. Though the burial place had been constructed, no burial was interred at the site. Outside, a causeway leading to the pyramid had been built from mudbrick that must have served the workers.
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