Neferure

Neferure or Neferura (, meaning The Beauty of Re) was an Egyptian princess of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. She was the daughter of two pharaohs, Hatshepsut and Thutmose II. She served in high offices in the government and the religious administration of Ancient Egypt.

Family Neferure was the only known child of Thutmose II and his great royal wife Hatshepsut. She was the granddaughter of Thutmose I and the half-sister of Thutmose III. It has been suggested that Neferure married her half-brother, but there is no conclusive evidence of such a marriage. A king’s son named Amenemhat (B) was installed as Overseer of the Cattle in year 24 of the reign of Thutmose III, and this prince may have been a son of Neferure. It has been pointed out however, that if Neferure had become a great royal wife of Thutmose III, she would have been attested with that title, which is not known to be the case. Thutmose II most likely died after just three years of reign. The heir to the throne, Thutmose III, was only a child and Hatshepsut served as his regent, but by the seventh year of his rule it is well documented that Hatshepsut took on the role of pharaoh and continued to rule until her death, for more than twenty years.

Neferure was tutored by some of Hatshepsut's most trusted advisers, at first Ahmose Pen-Nekhebet, who served under several of the preceding pharaohs and was held in great esteem. In his tomb he claims: For me the god’s wife repeated favors, the king’s great wife Maatkare justified; I brought up her eldest (daughter), the princess Neferura, justified, while she was (still) a child at the breast. Many depictions of her in these roles exist. She was given the titles Lady of Upper and Lower Egypt, Mistress of the Lands, and God's Wife of Amun; the latter title being one that Hatshepsut had to abandon upon becoming pharaoh. Neferure's presence has been all but obliterated from the material record, however one Egyptologist has attributed a large relief in the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut originally depicted Neferure but was later modified to depict Hatshepsut's mother Ahmes. All of the titles associated with Neferure are not found ascribed to Satiah however.

Burial and tomb A tomb thought to be constructed for her was found atop a sheer cliff by archeologist Howard Carter in Wady C of Wady Gabbanat el-Qurud, part of the Western Wadis associated with the Valley of the Queens. The connection of this tomb to Neferure is based on the presence of a weathered vertical cartouche containing her name cut into the cliff below the tomb entrance. The tomb itself consists of a passageway that leads to an elongated chamber, a second corridor leads off to the right ending in a bay and a niche; it was found to be mostly empty. It was noted that the tomb had been used, however, since the ceiling was smoothed and the walls plastered; traces of ochre and yellow paints could be defined. The archaeologists who inspected the tomb were certain that Neferure had not outlived her mother, Hatshepsut. Alternatively, her tomb may have been in Wady A, close to the tomb quarried for Hatshepsut as Great Royal Wife.