God's Wife of Amun

God's Wife of Amun (Egyptian: ḥm.t nṯr n ỉmn) was the highest-ranking priestess of the Amun cult, an important religious institution in ancient Egypt. The cult was centered in Thebes in Upper Egypt during the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth dynasties (circa 740-525 BC). The office had political importance as well as religious, since the two were closely related in ancient Egypt.

Although the title is first attested in the Middle Kingdom, its full political potential was not realized until the advent of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

The shorter version of the title God's Wife is in use by the time of the Twelfth Dynasty, when the title is attested for the non-royal women Iy-meret-nebes and Neferu. As early as the First Intermediate Period, there is mention of A "Wife of the God" in reference to the god Min. The full title of God's Wife of Amun is only used during and after the Eighteenth Dynasty.

At the beginning of the New Kingdom, the God's Wife of Amun royal title started to be held by royal women (usually the wife of the king, but sometimes by the mother of the king), when its extreme power and prestige was first evident. The New Kingdom began in 1550 BC with the Eighteenth Dynasty. These were the rulers who drove the Hyksos out of Egypt and their native city was Thebes, which then became the leading city in Egypt. They believed that their local deity, Amun, had guided them in their victory and the cult rose to national importance. Adjustments to the rituals and myths followed.

The title, God's Wife of Amun, "referred to the myth of the divine birth of the king, according to which his mother was impregnated by the god Amun." While the office theoretically, was sacred, it was essentially wielded as a political tool by the serving Egyptian pharaoh to ensure "royal authority over the Theban region and the powerful priesthood of Amun" there. The royal lineage was traced through its women and, the rulers and the religious institutions were inexorably woven together in traditions that remained quite stable over a period of three thousand years. This title was used in preference to the title, Great Royal Wife, which was the title of the queen who was the consort to the pharaoh and who officiated at the temple. The new title conveyed that the pharaoh would be a demigod upon birth. Previously the pharaoh was considered to become divine only at death.

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