Ahhotep I

Ahhotep I (, alternatively Anglicized Ahhotpe or Aahhotep, "Iah (the Moon) is satisfied") was an ancient Egyptian queen who lived , Refn|Due to a prior belief that there were two pharaohs with the same name of Seqenenre Tao, many scholarly sources name Ahhotep's father as Seqenenre Tao I and her husband as Seqenenre Tao II – but there is now wider recognition that the pharaoh considered to be Seqenenre Tao I was actually named Senakhtenre Ahmose.

Ahhotep was the mother of Pharaoh Ahmose I. Her exact relationship to Pharaoh Kamose is not known, but he may have been her brother-in-law (the brother of Seqenenre Tao) or her son. Ahhotep's other children include Princess Ahmose-Nebetta,

Scholars believe that Ahhotep took on governing responsibilities as a regent for her son until he was old enough to rule. In a linguistic analysis of the stela, Taneash Sidpura has posited that the wording does not necessarily imply direct military leadership but makes it clear Ahhotep was considered an effective ruler whose knowledge and abilities helped unite her people. In contrast, officials explicitly linked to Ahmose I were generally involved with border administration or the cult of the god Amun. Noria Serrano suggests this could indicate an ongoing division of ruling responsibilities between Ahhotep I and her son: Ahhotep may have managed administration of the palace and capital city of Thebes, along with other internal affairs, while Ahmose I focused his attentions on issues of border administration and the solidification of royal power abroad. Civil administrative officials only displayed clear links to the king again during the reign of Thutmose I, Ahhotep is mentioned on the Kares stela (CG 34003), which dates to year ten of the reign of her grandson Amenhotep I, and her steward Iuf also mentions her on his stela (CG 34009). Iuf refers to Ahhotep as the mother of Ahmose I, and would later be the steward of Queen Ahmose, wife of Thutmose I. This suggests Ahhotep I may have died at a fairly advanced age during the reign of Thutmose I.

The cult of Amenhotep I continued to remember Ahhotep after her death, up until at least the Twenty-first Dynasty, and her depiction has been found in multiple New Kingdom tombs where the tomb owners included her in their lists of respected ancestors.

In 1881, a separate team at Deir el-Bahari in the Royal Cache unearthed another coffin, this one also belonging to a queen named Ahhotep. This coffin had a longer, more elaborate set of titles inscribed, including the addition of "King's Daughter", "King's Sister", and "King's Mother", but did not contain the body of an individual named Ahhotep. Instead, this coffin had apparently been reused to bury a Theban high priest named Pinedjem I.

Theories around identity Initially, scholars assumed the name Ahhotep and similar titles inscribed on the coffins meant that both vessels probably belonged to the same Queen Ahhotep: perhaps the coffin at Deir el-Bahari had originally been designed to contain the one at Dra' Abu el-Naga, and the coffins had become separated. However, the dimensions of the coffins did not support this scenario.

Researchers in the 20th and 21st centuries have continued to explore the theory of a single Ahhotep,Refn|For examples, see discussions by Eaton-Krauss