A new Egyptian queen?

It has long been understood that Sobekneferu, the last ruler of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt who briefly reigned in the eighteenth century BC, was the first woman in ancient Egypt to fully adopt royal titles and to rule in her own right. Now, a new study by Sue Kelly and Crystal Miller published in the journal Prague Egyptological Studies has suggested that an earlier woman may have held a position of royal authority within early Egypt.

Meretneith, also known as Merneith, was a member of the First Dynasty of Egypt, likely active in the 2900s BC. Due to the existence of two serekhs — “the primary textual marker for identifying rulers during this period,” according to the authors of the paper (p. 29) — that record Meretneith’s name, it has been argued that Meretneith may have ruled Egypt in her own right. Indeed, Meretneith’s tomb more closely resembles that of earlier kings than those of their wives in scope, which led previous scholars to believe the tomb belonged to a male king called Merneit when it was first discovered. However, this conclusion has not been accepted, since Mereneith does not appear on the King List from the New Kingdom and appears on the Palermo Stone, dated to the Fifth Dynasty, as King’s Mother. Now, however, two scholars have chosen to wade into the debate, offering a novel study of these serekhs using digital processing techniques to determine if Meretneith’s name is, indeed, used.

Unfortunately, the original glass plate of the photograph of these serekhs, taken by Walter B. Emery, is lost, as are the seals themselves. Therefore, any subsequent study of these serekhs is reliant on an old photograph. So, the first thing this new study had to do was process a scan of the photograph to enhance its quality. They then “applied automated contrast correction” before exporting the file in a TIFF format “to preserve the highest possible image quality” (p. 30), thereby allowing for closer analysis.

According to the authors, “there appears little argument left to dispute that the serekh – held only by rulers – belonged to Meretneith” (p. 37). It is possible that Meretneith was co-ruler with her father, Djer, before becoming regent for her son Den. The authors write that “Meretneith may have had the advantage of stepping on and off the rulership platform as necessitated by the political environment” (p. 43), meaning she took on the role of ruler whenever was necessary. For example, it is possible that she outlived her son and assumed a ruling role in the interregnum, when she possibly authored Den’s necropolis seals. As such, Meretneith was in the position of ruler of Egypt at several moments in history.

That said, does this mean that Meretneith was the first female monarch of Egypt? The significance of Sobekneferu is that she adopted the royal titles herself, as Hatshepsut did after her, rather than hold a de facto position of rulership. Nor was she the first woman whose name appeared in a serekh. The wife of Narmer, Neith-hotep’s name was inscribed in a serekh with the crossed arrows of Neith above it, just as Meretneith’s name does in the image analysed in this study, and it has been proposed that she was regent in behalf of her son, Aha. Nevertheless, regardless of whether Meretneith can be considered the first female ruler of Egypt, this study has shown how, at this early point in Egypt’s history, in the words of the authors, “evidence suggests that a royal woman was the preferred interim ruler under prescribed circumstances or during a crisis in the state” (p. 44).

If you want to read this study for yourself, it was published as “New technology illuminating ancient evidence: re‑evaluating Meretneith’s serekhs and political position” in Prague Egyptological Studies 36 (2026), pp. 28–49 (see here).