Steamy Time Travel &
Historical Romance
Steamy Time Travel &
Historical Romance
Twosret was the last known ruler and the final Pharaoh of Egypt’s Nineteenth Dynasty. She is said to have ruled for seven years, but this also includes the nearly six-year reign of Siptah, her predecessor and stepson, son of her husband Seti II and a royal concubine.
She was the second wife of Seti II, and historians don’t know if there were children by that union, or if a child daughter is buried in KV56.
After her husband's death, she became first regent to Seti's heir Siptah with Chancellor Bay. When Siptah died, Twosret officially assumed the throne for herself, as the "Daughter of Re, Lady of Ta-merit, Twosret of Mut", and assumed the role of a Pharaoh.
The cartouche naming Twosret – images of the Pharaoh are hard to find
While it was commonly believed that she ruled Egypt with the aid of Chancellor Bay, ore recent research shows that Chancellor Bay had been executed by Siptah during the fifth year of his reign. The reasons for this are also lost to time.
Twosret’s childless reign ended in a civil war, documented in
the Elephantine stela of her successor – the founder of the Twentieth Dynasty,
Setnakhte. Whether Twosret was overthrown by the war or died peacefully is
unknown.
Twosret’s childless reign ended in a civil war, documented in the Elephantine stela of her successor – the founder of the Twentieth Dynasty, Setnakhte. Whether Twosret was overthrown by the war or died peacefully is unknown.
Setnakhte usurped the joint tomb of Seti II and Twosret for himself. Seti he reburied in tomb KV15, but not Twosret. He deliberately replastered and redrew all images of Twosret as himself.
A female mummy from the Nineteenth Dynasty could belong to the fallen Pharaoh, but there is no real evidence to determine that this is Twosret. The mummy referred to as “Unknown Woman D” would have lost any identifying artifacts or grave goods that might have otherwise provided her identity.
Setnakhte’s son Ramesses III later excluded both Twosret and Siptah from his Medinet Habu list of Egyptian kings. From this it seems more likely that Twosret was removed from power in a civil war.
As for KV56, it contained what could be the intact burial of a royal child from the late Nineteenth Dynasty – when Twosret was Queen and Pharaoh. While the burial and casket themselves have disintegrated, leaving behind a thin layer of stucco covered in gold leaf, the major find (and the reason for the name “The Gold Tomb”) is the spectacular gold and silver jewelry recovered there.
This jewelry, including earrings, rings, and silver bracelets, has the names of Seti II and Twosret inscribed. The design of the tomb is similar to those of earlier burials from the Eighteenth Dynasty, but Seti II and Twosret ruled at the end of the Nineteenth Dynasty. The identity of any specific burial in KV56 is unknown.
Inspired by The Theban Mapping Project, a program of the American University in Cairo.
The end of a dynasty – though the time traveler knows it and those living on borrowed time do not. A Pharaoh who will die in only a few years, a step mother who usurps him, and a reign that ends with a childless Pharaoh plunging Egypt into civil war. The basic facts are enough to be worth writing about.
But why did Siptah execute Chancellor Bay? What happened to him that he dies so young? And why is Twosret associated with a burial where a child might have been when she herself didn’t have one with husband Seti?
I took the questions history gave me and strung them together to get some interesting answers. I may or may not have done the true Twosret an injustice, but to survive in the midst of Egyptian dynastic politics to ascend the throne of Egypt, the historical Twosret may have been as single-minded and ruthless as the woman portrayed in the books.
And as far as the mystery waiting for an explanation? History essentially created it for me – with the wicked stepmother, star-crossed lovers, and a few secret love children thrown in, there’s something for everyone in this romance spanning the centuries!
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