Shanakdakheto or Shanakdakhete was a Black African ruling queen of Kush, when the Kingdom was centered at Meroë

Meroë

Meroë Meroitic: Medewi or Bedewi; Arabic: and Meruwi) is an ancient city on the east bank of the Nile about 6 km north-east of the Kabushiya station near Shendi, Sudan, approximately 200 km north-east of Khartoum. Near the site are a group of villages called Bagrawiyah...

. She is the earliest known ruling queen of Nubia

Nubia

Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...

, and reigned from about 177 to 155 BC (these dates are very uncertain and disputed ). She styled herself as Son of Re, Lord of the Two Lands, Shanakdakheto (Sa Re nebtawy, Shanakdakheto).

The only inscription mentioning her comes from Temple F in Naga where her name appears "in Meroitic hieroglyphics in the middle of an Egyptian text." The name appears in Meroitic script

Meroitic script

The Meroitic script is an alphabetic script originally derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, used to write the Meroitic language of the Kingdom of Meroë/Kush. It was developed in the Napatan Period , and first appears in the 2nd century BCE. For a time, it was also possibly used to write the Nubian...

, the earliest known example of Meroitic writing. Her pyramid was identified at Meroë, but does not preserve her name.

External links

• The Candaces of Meroe (332 BC-12 AD)