| Tiaa | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
"Ti the Great" | ||||||||||||
 Statue of Pharaoh Thutmose IV with his mother Tiaa at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. | ||||||||||||
| Dynasty | 18th Dynasty | |||||||||||
| Pharaoh(s) | Amenhotep II Thutmose IV | |||||||||||
| Titles | King's Great Wife King's Mother God's Wife | |||||||||||
| Spouse(s) | Amenhotep II | |||||||||||
| Issue | Thutmose IV | |||||||||||
| Burial | KV32 | |||||||||||
Tiaa (ancient Egyptian: tỉ-ꜥꜣ, "Ti the Great") was an ancient Egyptian Queen during the Eighteenth Dynasty in the New Kingdom.
Family[]
Tiaa is the only known wife of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, and her name is only known because she was the mother of the next pharaoh, Thutmose IV. During the reign of her husband the women of the royal family were much less represented than earlier during the 18th dynasty; this was probably because the pharaoh did not want any of them to usurp power as Hatshepsut had only a few decades earlier.[1] Amenhotep II deliberately withheld the title of Great Royal Wife from her, but her son Thutmose IV, as pharaoh, performed a revision of his mother's status and gave her that title.[2][3]
Tiaa is never called King's Daughter and thus her parentage is unknown. It has been speculated that she was Amenhotep II's sister or half-sister, but it is not certain.[4]
Biography[]
Tiaa is not depicted on any monuments built by her husband, only on those which were completed by her son. During the reign of Thutmose IV she rose to more prominence; along with the title of Great Royal Wife she also received the titles King's Mother and God's Wife. On many statues she and Thutmose IV's first chief wife Nefertari accompany the pharaoh.[5] Several depictions of Meritre-Hatshepsut were altered to show Tiaa.[6] One of Thutmose IV's daughters, Tiaa, is likely to have been named after her.
Burial[]
Tiaa was buried in her KV32 rock-cut tomb in the Valley of the Kings, where fragments of her funerary equipment – including a canopic chest – were found. Floodwater washed some of these into KV47, the adjacent Nineteenth Dynasty tomb of Pharaoh Siptah.[7] Prior to this knowledge, it had caused Egyptologists to believe that the funerary equipment belonged to a like-named queen consort of Seti II and King's Mother of Siptah.[8]
References[]
Bibliography[]
- Dodson, A./Hilton, D., 2004: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, London.
- Dodson, A., 2010: Poisoned Legacy: The Decline and Fall of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty. American University in Cairo Press.
- Kozloff, A.P., 2012: Amenhotep III Egypt's Radiant Pharaoh. Cambridge.
- Manuelian, P. der, 1987: Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II.
- Shaw, I., 2000: The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt.