Two Contemporary Queens Named Ahhotep at the Dawn of the Eighteenth Dynasty: Evidence from the Sources and the Bracelet Cairo JE 4685

The identity of the queen(s) called Ahhotep has long been a topic of fascination for scholars, resulting in countless hypotheses and scenarios surrounding her/their identity and genealogy. Amongst the hundreds of theories, one fact is indisputable: one queen Ahhotep was the mother of Ahmose Nebpehtyre, the founder of the glorious Eighteenth Dynasty. Her role in the reunification of Egypt after the Hyksos interlude was of great importance and remembered for centuries after that. However, there was also another queen named Ahhotep, who was buried in a rishi coffin with rich and unparalleled burial equipment found in the hills of Dra Abu el-Naga by Auguste Mariette in 1859. In the inscriptions on the coffin, Ahhotep was juts labelled as "great king's wife", but - despite the lack of the title of king's mother - scholars have identified her with Ahmose's mother, due to the lavish set of objects in her coffin. This paper aims to provide an organic analysis of the available sources related to a queen named Ahhotep, demonstrating the existence of two queens named Ahhotep. The source of our confusion can be given by the fact that the two queens may have lived approximately simultaneously, as evidenced by the use, restoration, and readaptation of the Cairo JE 4685 bracelet found in the coffin of Dra Abu el-Naga.