Mentuhotep II & Wives

Limestone; From Deir el-Bahri, Mortuary Temple of Mentuhotep II; Middle Kingdom, Eleventh Dynasty, (2010 B.C.); Acquired in 1936 from the Von Bissing collection; Munich, Staatliche Sammlung Agyptischer Kunst

(Right) This fragment of relief comes from the tomb of one of the wives of King Mentuhotep II at Deir el-Bahri. It shows the queen [Kawit?] with distinctly Nubian facial features and a close-cropped, curled hairstyle. We can assume that the royal house of the early Middle Kingdom, residing at Thebes, had close connections with Nubia.

Photo and texts from the book Sudan: Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile, Dietrich Wildung, 1997, p. 81

The majority of the scenes in the chapel take their inspiration from the Book of The Dead, but the artist has nevertheless managed to express a certain degree of originality in their details. The sequence of scenes unfolds according to a logical order: the funeral and the scenes on earth which follow the death, lead to the door of the burial chamber. From then, unfold the scenes showing the life of the deceased in the Amenti, at the border of which Amenemonet is greeted by king Mentuhotep and queen Neferys. Scenes of worship to Amun, Horus, Maat and other deities, conclude this decorative programme. The mural paintings, with their bright and fresh colours, are painted on a pale bluish-white wash throughout the chapel.

Painted sandstone statue of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II, 11th Dynasty. After nearly two centuries of political and national instability Nebhepetre Mentuhotep reunited Egypt and founded the period known as the Middle Kingdom. The statue is from his funerary temple and exhibits the strength of the new art at Thebes. The head of the statue and the body are from different statues. -- Metropolitan Museum

The Lady Kawit/Kauit Takes a Drink

This picture is a carved panel from the tomb of Queen Kawit, consort of 11th Dynasty King Mentuhotep II. In this picture, a servant offers her a cup of something to start her day as she undergoes her morning toilette.; Housed at the Egyptian Museum; Room 48

Kemsit, the Nubian queen of the Egyptian King Mentuhotep II (2061-2010 B.C.), and her servants; from a painting in her tomb chamber wall; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; from Naville, The XI Dynasty Temples at Deir el-Bahri III (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1913), pl 3.

Kemsit was sometimes called Kemsiyet and Khemsait. She was buried in Mentuhotpe's mortuary complex at Thebes. Her sarcophagus had inscriptions calling her the "Sole Favorite of the King", but this was on other female's sarcophagi as well.

Sarcophagus of Princess Ashayt; The princesses of the court of Mentuhoptep II were buried in elegant limestone sarcophaguses near the temple of pharaoh at Deir el-Bahari. The scenes are framed by hieroglyphic texts that list the goods offered to the ladies and wish them eternal well-being. Short inscriptions by each figure state the words said by the servants to the noble ladies of the court. Housed at the Metropolitan Museum.

Eternal Egypt, British Museum quote:

Page 89:

"Kemsit's skin color is now pink, but so are her necklace and bracelets and other parts of the relief. The pink may have been an undercoat, and traces of a darker color on her skin, a brown or dark red, may have been the actual color of her skin when the relief was freshly painted. Other representations of Kemsit (and some of the other Royal Favorites) show her with black skin. It has been argued that the occasional representation of black skin on these women is purely symbolic, having funerary significance because black was the color of fertility and rebirth. That is possible, but it is also entirely possible that Kemsit and some of the other women buried in these chapels were Nubian by birth or by ancestry.

Thebes is quite far to the south, relatively close to ancient Nubia, and we know there was a great deal of coming and going, and a certain amount of intermarriage between the peoples of southern Egypt and Nubia."