Nefertkau I

Nefertkau in hieroglyphs
Nefertkau Nfr.t kau

Nefertkau I was a 4th dynasty princess of ancient Egypt. She was the eldest daughter of King Sneferu and hence a half-sister to King Khufu. She was the mother of Nefermaat II and the grandmother of Sneferukhaf.^[1]

Nefertkau is explicitly said to be a daughter of Sneferu in inscriptions from the tomb of her son and her grandson. Kurt Heinrich Sethe argued from the inscription in Nefermaat’s tomb that Nefertkau had married her own father and that Nefermaat was Sneferu’s son. George Andrew Reisner argued against this theory and suggested that Nefertkau may have married Khufu. He does allow for the possibility that Nefertkau married a noble man whose name was lost.^[2]

Nefertkau may have buried in mastaba G 7050 at Giza. The tomb is not inscribed however so that the ownership is somewhat conjectural.^[3]

References

1. Dodson, Aidan and Hilton, Dyan. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson. 2004. ISBN 0-500-05128-3
2. Reisner, George A. Nefertkauw, the eldest daughter of Sneferuw. Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 64 (1929), pp. 97–99.
3. Bertha Porter and Rosalind Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Statues, Reliefs and Paintings Volume III: Memphis, Part I Abu Rawash to Abusir. 2nd edition (revised and augmented by Dr Jaromir Malek, 1974). Retrieved from gizapyramids.org.