| Meketaten | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
"Protected by the Aten" | ||||||||
 Queen Nefertiti with Meketaten on her lap (left) and Ankhesenpaaten (right). | ||||||||
| Dynasty | 18th Dynasty | |||||||
| Titles | King's Daughter | |||||||
| Father | Akhenaten | |||||||
| Mother | Nefertiti | |||||||
| Spouse(s) | Akhenaten (?) | |||||||
| Issue | Perhaps one daughter | |||||||
| Burial | AT26 | |||||||
Meketaten ("Behold the Aten" or "Protected by the Aten") is a Princess of the Eighteenth Dynasty during the New Kingdom.
Family[]
Meketaten was the secondborn of the six daughters of Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Queen Nefertiti. Her older sister was Meritaten. Her younger sisters include; Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten-Tasherit, Neferneferure, and Setepenre.[1]
Life[]
Meketaten was born approximately in Year 4 of Akhenaten's reign and was still a young child when the royal family moved to Akhenaten's new capital at Amarna. She appears on a stela from Year 5 of Akhenaten's reign.
Death and Burial[]
Meketaten died in approximately Year 14 of Akhenaten and was buried in her father's AT26 tomb. The walls of her burial chamber contains a peculiar scene of her death. Meketaten is depicted under a canopy that is typically associated with childbirth, while her family is mourning. A royal baby is also present in the scene. Some scholars interpretate the scene to tell that Meketaten died in childbirth, in which case Akhenaten would most likely be the child's father. However, others suggest the scene to symbolically represent the death and rebirth of Meketaten in the afterlife[2] and that the royal baby represents Meketaten's ka/soul.[3] If she did not die in childbirth, she most likely succumbed to the plague that swept through the country at the time.
References[]
Bibliography[]
- Dodson, A./Hilton, D., 2004: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, London.
- Dodson, A., 2009: Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb, and the Egyptian Counter Reformation. The American University in Cairo Press.
- Dijk, J. van, 2009: The Death of Meketaten. In: Causing His Name to Live: Studies in Egyptian Epigraphy and History in Memory of William J. Murnane. ed. P. Brand and L. Cooper, Culture and history of the Ancient Near East 37. Brill, Leiden.