God's Wife of Amun
"[2] While the office theoretically, was sacred, it was essentially wielded as a political tool by the serving Egyptian pharaoh to ensure "royal authority over the Theban region and the powerful priesthood of Amun" there.
[2] The royal lineage was traced through its women, and the rulers and the religious institutions were inexorably woven together in traditions that remained quite stable over a period of three thousand years.
Both Ahmose-Nefertari and Hatshepsut sometimes used the title as an alternative to that of "King's Principal Wife", which shows how important they felt the role was.
A series of scenes in Hatshepsut's Chapelle Rouge show the God's Wife of Amun (her daughter) and a male priest undergoing a ritual or ceremony that seems to be aimed at destroying the names of enemies.
Other scenes elsewhere show the God's Wife of Amun worshiping the deities, being purified in the sacred lake, and following the king into the sanctuary.
so the co-regency assured that these royal offspring with closer ties to Hatshepsut would be removed from the line of descent, and Thutmose III's chosen heir would rule.
The records of holders of the title, God's Wife of Amun, after Thutmose III became pharaoh deviate from the established pattern, perhaps because of the line of royalty issue.
After Neferure the list notes, Iset, the mother of Thutmose III, but it is quite certain that she never officiated, and was awarded the title after her death.
After all of those changes during his long reign, the office holder was the daughter of Thutmose III, returning to the traditional association.
Amenhotep II seems to be the one who initiated the attempts to remove records of Hatshepsut's reign while his father was an old man and continued these efforts after he became pharaoh in his own right, claiming many of her achievements as his own, but failing to be thorough.
[citation needed] Amenhotep II also tried to break traditions by preventing the names of his wives from being recorded and introducing women who were not from the royal lineage into the line of descent—without success—as his designated heir was overlooked.
The pharaoh changed his name to Akhenaten and moved his court to a new capital he had built, Akhetaten Horizon of Aten, at the site known today as Amarna.
By appointing priests to the cult of Amun from the high ranks of his trusted army, he avoided any attempts to reestablish the powerful relationships that had provoked the drastic change made by Akhenaten.
The title, God's Wife of Amun, was revived during the Twentieth Dynasty, when Ramesses VI (1145–1137 BC) conferred this office as well as the additional title of Divine Adoratrice of Amun on his daughter, Iset; the king's actions inaugurated the tradition where every subsequent holder of this office had to be "a king's daughter, and was expected to remain an unmarried virgin.
"[2] The office of the God's Wife of Amun reached the very heights of its political power during the late Third Intermediate Period, when Shepenupet I, Osorkon III's daughter, was first appointed to this post at Thebes.
