Egypt Exploration Society

The Princess Baketamn

Author(s): Sue D'Auria
Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 69 (1983), pp. 161-162
Published by: Egypt Exploration Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3821448
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group [n j written before him, thus becoming a large-sized indicator.' This suggestion finds
good support when we compare this artistic arrangement with the text of the coffin (AEIN I6I5)
of Gemniemhet: here we see the priestly title determined by ', a seated man with a papyrus-roll
in his outstretched hand (see p. I59 n. 9).
To sum up, we hope to have demonstrated that the reading sd(it) is to be preferred to dd in this
passage, and that the text of Idw provides a further example, indeed the earliest, of the inclusion
J. R. OGDON
of sd(i)t schw in funerary proskynemata.

The Princess

Baketamiin2

IN I905, the Museum of Fine Arts received a gift of artefacts from the year's excavations of the
Egypt Exploration Fund. Included was a fragment of a faience votive object (05.239), probably a
menat, discovered by Naville3 in his work at the Eleventh Dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahri. The
object is one of hundreds of faience votive offerings found in a regular stratum in three separate
locations: (i) at the western end of the temple platform; (2) in the North Lower Colonnade;
(3) in the North Court between the Montuhotpe and Hatshepsut temples. Naville surmised that
all the faience offerings could be dated to the Eighteenth Dynasty. Most of the inscriptions were of
Hatshepsut's reign, and none was later than that of Amenophis II. It was Naville's opinion that
these offerings had been originally placed in the Hathor chapels of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III,
later to be discarded and tossed down between the two temples and on to the Eleventh Dynasty
pavement.

FIG. I

The MFA votive has a brilliant blue colour, and is inscribed on both sides in black (see fig. i).
One side contains a cartouche which is recognizable as the prenomen of Tuthmosis III: 'beloved
of Hathor'. The reverse is inscribed with a second cartouche containing the name BRkt-imn.
Unfortunately, any titles which Baketamun possessed have been broken away.4
The name is not a common one. As a private name, Baketamin occurs sporadically in the New
Kingdom written in several forms.5 As a royal name, however, only one other example is known
I

See H. G. Fischer in R. Caminos and H. G. Fischer, Ancient Egyptian Epigraphy and Palaeography,

35-7. This seems to have been a practiceof which the Egyptianartistswere very fond.
2
I wish to thankMr EdwardBrovarskifor his commentson an earlierversion of this paper,and Mr Lynn
Holden for his illustrationof the MFA piece.
3
4
5

Naville, XIth Dynasty Temple at Deir el-Bahari, I (1907), 17;

III (I913),

I3-I4.

Note the unusualwritingof Hathor.

Dyn. XVIII: Davies and Gardiner, The Tombof Amenemhet(I9I5), 4; von Bergmann,Rec. Trav. 9

(1887), 47. Dyn XIX: James, Hieroglyphic Textsfrom Eg. Stelae 9 (I970), pls. li, no. 314; xx, no. 139; Gardiner,

RamessideAdministrativeDocuments(1948), 29, 6. It is interestingto note that the use of honorifictransposition in the name does not seem to appearafter Dynasty XVIII.
M

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to me. A wooden staff in the Brooklyn Museum (37.i83oE; see pl. XX)' is inscribed as 'an offering
of Amin (for) the servant of the King's daughter Baketamun, may she live, Amenmose of the Island
of Hwt'.2 The piece, formerly in the Abbott collection, has been variously dated by scholars. In
Gauthier suggested the possible identification of Baketamiun with Baketaten, the sister of
9
Akhenaten. Gauthier hypothesized a change of name paralleling that of Tut<ankhamin at the end
of the Amarna Period.4 However, four years later Gauthier5 classified Baketamin as probably
belonging to the Ramesside era. More recently, James6 has published the Brooklyn staff, dating it
stylistically to the late Eighteenth Dynasty. Finally, Hassan7 has identified the same Baketamiiun
as a daughter of Ramesses IX.
In spite of the later dates assigned to the staff, the MFA faience fragment provides some evidence
that it may belong to the Tuthmosid era, since the Baketamiln commemorated on the latter may
well be identical with the princess on the former. Certainly, there is nothing in the style of the
hieroglyphs inconsistent with such a date. The writing of the name differs on the two pieces, but
this is not unusual. Indeed, in a contemporary Theban tomb of the Eighteenth Dynasty (no. 82),
the name of Baketamiin, the wife of the steward Amenemhet, is written as
I. 7, once as
S .8
and
is
most
as
abbreviated
commonly
jJai,
The abbreviated form of the name occurs on a scarab in the British Museum9 inscribed for
On the basis of its style and glazing, the scarab was dated by
the 'king's daughter Baket (J )'.
Newberrylo to the reign of Tuthmosis III. A similar scarab appeared in a recent Sotheby Sale
catalogue." The writing of Baket(amin) without the aleph on the scarabs in Theban tomb no. 82
and elsewhere" does not appear to postdate the mid Eighteenth Dynasty. This lends additional
support to a Tuthmosid date for the Brooklyn staff.
All the objects inscribed for Baket(amuin) can thus be dated to the same period, indicating
that she was a princess of the mid Eighteenth Dynasty, probably a daughter of Tuthmosis III.
Interestingly, she does not appear in the group of family members portrayed in his tomb, which
includes three wives and a deceased princess, Nefertiri.13 However, the Hathor chapel of Tuthmosis III at Deir el-Bahri includes representations of two princesses.14 The first of these is the
'king's daughter, king's sister, god's wife and god's hand, Merytamen', who is also unnamed in
her father's tomb. She apparently died as a princess, never achieving the status of 'great royal
wife'.15 The name and titles of the second figure are broken away. If it is not Nefertiri who is
represented, perhaps the princess is Baketamuin.The MFA fragment, found near this very chapel
and coupling her name with that of Tuthmosis III, provides a strong association between them.

SUE D'AURIA
I
James, Corpus of Hieroglyphic Inscriptions in the Brooklyn Museum(I974), 118-I9. I should like to thank
Mr Bernard V. Bothmer for his permission to publish the staff.
2
The location of the place-name 'the island of IHwt' is unknown. In the Ramesside Period t; Hwt is an
abbreviation for t; Hwt Wsr-Mrt-Rr-Mr-'Imn (Medinet Habu) (Cernm, JEA 26 (1940), 127-30).

3 Gauthier,

10 (1910), 207-8.
of this princess appears to incorporate the name of Amun into her name.
Gauthier, Le Livre des rois, III (1914), 228.
James, Corpus, 118-19.
Hassan, MAS 33 (1976), I50-1. Some confusion is evident here, as the date given is Dynasty XIX,
no references are included for the association of Baketamuin with Ramesses IX.
Davies and Gardiner, op. cit. 4.
Hall, Catalogue of Eg. Scarabs etc. in the British Museum (1913), 47.
ASAE

4 None of the
representations

6
7

and
8
9
10

PSBA
Newberry,
24 (1902),
252.
"1 Sotheby Sale Catalogue, MayI6,

12 Lieblein,

1980, no. 329.

Dictionnaire de noms hidroglyphiques, I,I93,

no. 582. I owe this reference to Professor J. J.

Clere, who called my attention to the chronological significance of this spelling.

13 Helck, Urk. iv, 602, 7-Io.
14 Naville, op. cit., III, pi. xxviii B.
'5 Logan and Williams, Serapis 4 (1977-8),

25.

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