Published: November 29, 2010 - By History.

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A New Female Pharaoh for Ancient Egypt

Queen Arsino II ruled Egypt as a female pharaoh long before her more famous
descendant, Cleopatra VII, according to a new study. Maria Nilsson of the
University of Gothenburg reached this conclusion after studying depictions of
Arsinos crown, which was designed to convey her role and influence.
Cleopatra VII has long been considered the only female pharaoh of the Ptolemaic
dynasty, a Greek royal family that ruled Egypt from 305 B.C. to 30 B.C. But a
recent analysis of a unique royal crown suggests that her lesser-known ancestor,
Queen Arsino II, held that distinction some 200 years earlier. Conducted by Maria
Nilsson of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, the study offers a new
interpretation of the official pharaonic succession and underscores the symbolic
power of crowns in Egyptian art.
Arsino II was born in 316 B.C. to Ptolemy I, a friend and adviser of Alexander the
Great who seized control of Egypt after the Greek kings death. Following the death
of her first husband, Lysimachus of Thrace, Arsino married her half-brother
Ptolemy Keraunos, king of Macedonia; the union ended soon after when he killed
two of her three sons in a power struggle. She then returned to Egypt and married
her full brother Ptolemy II, becoming co-ruler of his empire. The couple adopted the
epithet Philadelphus (meaning brother- or sister-loving) to celebrate their shared
leadership.
Previous scholars have already established Arsinos strong political influence
from textual sources, some of which describe her as power-hungry, scheming and
even responsible for the exile of Ptolemy IIs first wife. (Others make reference to
her popularity with the people, skill in foreign policy, participation in the Olympic
games and expansion of the royal library of Alexandria.) To dig deeper into the life
and legacy of this historically significant yet mysterious queen, Nilsson conducted
the first comprehensive study of relief scenes featuring Arsino, paying special
attention to her unique crown while taking contextual details and hieroglyphics into
account. She published her findings in her doctoral dissertation, entitled The
Crown of Arsino II: The Creation and Development of an Imagery of Authority.
In ancient Egypt, and particularly during the Ptolemaic period, crowns served as a
strong indicator of the wearers position, often featuring pictorial elements that
corresponded to specific titles, bloodlines and religious roles. They were, as
Nilsson writes in her dissertation, an ideal tool for communicating individuality and
status when all the other elements were fundamentally locked in artistic tradition
and strictly regulated. While archaeologists have yet to uncover any of the
physical crowns themselves, many portrayals of them exist on tomb paintings,
statues and reliefs.
Nilsson concluded that the particular iconography of Arsinos crown reflects the
three positions the queen held: her royal standing as co-regent of Egypt; her cultic
role as high priestess; and her religious significanceboth during her lifetime and
after her deathas the goddess Thea Philadelphus. Perhaps most significantly, it
suggests that she ruled as a female pharaoh and as the equal of her brother-
husband Ptolemy II, challenging prevailing assumptions that the royal line excluded
female regents.
If Nilssons theory is correct, this means that Arsino ranks among the most
powerful royal women in ancient Egyptian history and that the Ptolemaic dynasty
included not one but two female pharaohs. It places her in a similar position as the
more famous Hatshepsut and Cleopatra VII, and it hopefully will trigger a new
debate regarding the official Egyptian king list, Nilsson explained.
As part of the study, Nilsson developed and employed a method of gleaning
hierarchic order from reliefs that she hopes will result in a new way of reading
Egyptian art, she said. The technique involves drawing a horizontal crown line
across the top of the highest crown in the scene to identify the most important
individual. (In other words, she or he who wears the tallest crown stands at the top
of the hierarchy.) Previously, status has been considered based on other
credentials, primarily on the size of the figures measured according to their heads,
Nilsson said.
When Arsino died in 270 B.C. at the approximate age of 45, she became the first
Ptolemaic queen to receive her own cult and was worshipped for many years.
Meanwhile, her crown was adopted by other female figures, including Cleopatra III
and VII. During the reign of Ptolemy IV, it was used as a template for the crown of
the goddess Hathor, one of the ancient Egyptian religions central deities; in
Nilssons view, this was an attempt by the struggling pharaoh to emphasize his
lineage and divinity amid massive political instability. Arsinos crown had become,
she writes, a symbol of authority worthy of continuation.