Ankhesenamen

Ankhsenamen (right) and her husband King Tutankhamun (left) on the Golden Throne. Image Copyright - Sandro Vannini.

1348 BC - 1324 BC

Queen and King Tutankhamun's Wife

Relationship	People
Parents	Nefertiti
Partners	Tutankhamun

Ankhesenamen was born around 1348 BC and was the third daughter of Pharoah Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti. It is believed that when she was twelve years old she married her own father and the union produced one daughter, Ankhesenpaaton-tasherit. After the death of her father, however, she was briefly married to Smenkhkare, Akhenaten's successor, so he may have been the father of the child.

In 1332 she became Queen of Tutankhaten after marrying Tutankhamun. They had two children, both of whom died, believed to be stillborn. In the ninth year of his reign, aged only eighteen, Tutankhamun died suddenly, leaving Ankhesenamen without a husband or an heir. She was just twenty-one at the time and made the decision to marry Ay so that Egypt would have a pharoah. She died shortly after his reign in 1322.