[5] A stela found in Karnak from the reign of Ahmose I has a section that describes Ahhotep I as ruling Egypt and uniting its people, attributes that are normally reserved for kings.

Based partially on the stela's text, scholars have speculated that Ahhotep commanded the Egyptian army, perhaps during her son's youth or while he was later abroad as an adult.

[7] In a linguistic analysis of the stela, Taneash Sidpura has posited that the wording does not necessarily imply direct military leadership but makes it clear Ahhotep was considered an effective ruler whose knowledge and abilities helped unite her people.

Through an analysis of Egyptian royal officials from the early Eighteenth Dynasty, Beatriz Noria Serrano notes that the officials explicitly linked to Ahhotep I (e.g., through titles, inscriptions, and artifacts) generally held civil administrative positions, such as "overseer of the double house of gold", "overseer of the double granary of the (royal wife and) king's mother Ahhotep", or "senior steward of the king's mother".

[6]: 97 In 1859, a team of Egyptian workers employed by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette discovered a coffin at a dig site in Dra' Abu el-Naga'.

The coffin was identified as belonging to a queen named Ahhotep and inscribed with the titles "Great Royal Wife" and "She who is joined to the White Crown".

The unexplained absence of this title from the burial at Dra' Abu el-Naga' meant that the two coffins likely belonged to two separate queens named Ahhotep.

[4]: 146–148  Ahhotep II is now generally regarded as the queen identified from the gilded coffin found at Dra' Abu el-Naga' and, therefore, possibly a wife of Kamose.

[12] Researchers in the 20th and 21st centuries have continued to explore the theory of a single Ahhotep,[note 2] although academic Marilina Betrò posits that these interpretations of the available evidence "present more problems than they solve.

"[4]: 137  Other scholars have offered alternative reconstructions that argue for the existence of at least three Ahhoteps,[note 3] with chronological orders and numbering changing depending on the interpretations.

[4]: 134–135  No funerary equipment belonging to Ahhotep I was found with this coffin, and the question of whether her original burial place was truly at Deir el-Bahari or elsewhere remains unanswered.