- Maathorneferure
Maathorneferure was a daughter of the Hittite king
Hattusili III , and was married to the EgyptianPharaoh Ramesses II in the 34th year of his reign, becoming the Great King's Wife. But only a short while after her marriage her name is not mentioned anymore, the supposition being that she died.Egypt and the
Hittite empire had been increasingly at odds since the demise of the kingdom of theMitanni , and Maathorneferure's marriage to the Egyptian king was the conclusion of the peace process which had begun with the signing of apeace treaty thirteen years earlier.Maathorneferure was the daughter of
Hattusili III and his wifePuduchepa . Her original name is unknown, but her Egyptian name translates as "One who sees Horus, the invisible splendor of Ra".At Tanis, there is a broken statue of Ramesses that shows her (mostly destroyed) figure touching his leg, together with her cartouche.
During the latter half of the first millennium BCE Maathorneferure's marriage to the pharaoh gave rise to the tale inscribed on the Bentresh Stela in which the sister of a foreign queen is healed by a divine statue sent from Egypt.Fact|date=September 2008
Alternative Spellings
* Maat-hor-neferure
* Maatnefrure
* Maat-hor-nefrureReferences
* "Marriage Stela" in "Ancient Records of Egypt" by J. H. Breasted, Part Three, §415ff
* "The Bentresh Stela" in "Ancient Egyptian Literature" by M. Lichtheim, Vol.3, pp.90ff.
* "Ramesside Inscriptions" by Kenneth Anderson Kitchen
* "Letters of the Great Kings of the Ancient Near East: The Royal Correspondence of the Late Bronze Age" byTrevor R. Bryce , p.117ff.
* "The Kingdom Of The Hittites" by Trevor Robert Bryce, p.283Notes
External links
* [http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/gurob/papyri/queenmaathor.html Faience plaque bearing the name of Queen Maathorneferure]
* [http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/texts/marriage_stela.htm The Marriage Stela of Ramses II]
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