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Neferure: Hatshepsut's daughter and her name in hieroglyphs

13 October 2026

Neferure was a princess of the 18th Dynasty, the only known child of Hatshepsut and her husband Thutmose II. Her name is four signs: the sun disc of Ra and three heart-and-windpipe signs, read nfrw-rꜥ, "Beauty of Ra".

She grew up as her mother went from queen to regent to king, and she took over some of the queen's duties herself. Most people meet her today in the statues of her tutor Senenmut, where a child's head pokes out of his cloak. Then she drops out of the record, and Egyptologists do not know for certain when or how she died.

Ra comes first in her name

The name is written nfrw-rꜥ and said "nefer-u-ra". The sun disc (N5) stands first in the writing because it is the god Ra, and gods' names were put in front out of respect. It is read last.

The heart with its windpipe (F35) writes nfr, "good, beautiful". Written three times it becomes the plural noun nfrw, "beauty" or "perfection": three of a thing was the Egyptian way to show many.

Names built on nfr were common in her family's century. Nefertari, the great queen of a later dynasty, uses the same sign.

Sun Heart and windpipe

Neferure's name sits in a royal cartouche

Royal daughters could write their names in a cartouche, the oval ring kings used. On a block statue of Senenmut found at Karnak, Neferure's name sits in a cartouche beside her head, after the title "God's Wife". The ring tells a reader at once that the name belongs to the royal family.

Her titles grew with her mother's career. She was called Lady of Upper and Lower Egypt and Mistress of the Lands, and above all God's Wife (ḥmt-nṯr, "hemet-netjer", written with the flag of a god, R8) of Amun, a powerful priestly office at Thebes. Hatshepsut had held it as queen and gave it up when she became king. A relief on the Red Chapel at Karnak shows Neferure carrying out the rituals of the office.

Cartouche Cloth on a pole

Three officials raised her

Three officials were named as her carers. The veteran soldier Ahmose Pen-Nekhbet wrote in his tomb that he brought up the princess Neferure when she was still at the breast. Senenmut came next, as steward of the king's daughter. When he rose to higher posts, an official called Senimen took over.

Senenmut made the most of the role. Several statues, eight by one count, show him holding her. In the block statues only her small head appears from his cloak, with the sidelock of a royal child and a cobra on her brow. In the British Museum statue she sits on his lap with a finger to her mouth, the Egyptian sign of a child.

See how Senenmut wrote his own name

Neferure drops out of the record

The last clear dates are few. She is named in Senenmut's first tomb, begun around year 7 of Hatshepsut's reign, and on a stela of year 11 at Serabit el-Khadim in Sinai. His second tomb, from about year 16, leaves her out. Many scholars take this to mean she died between those years.

Others think she lived into the reign of her half-brother Thutmose III, and some have suggested she married him, though no inscription says so. A great royal wife of his would carry that title, and Neferure is never given it.

A tomb on a cliff in the western wadis of Thebes, found by Howard Carter, may have been meant for her. The link rests on a worn cartouche with her name cut into the cliff below the entrance. Her mummy has never been identified.

Senenmut's statues show her in three museums

The statues with Senenmut are the best place to find her. One of the Karnak block statues is in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where her name is carved in its cartouche. The British Museum in London holds the seated statue with the princess on his lap, and the Egyptian collection in Berlin, shown at the Neues Museum, has another block statue.

At Karnak, the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut has been rebuilt in the Open Air Museum, with her God's Wife scene among its blocks. Look for the three nefer signs under a sun disc. In damaged places her name, like her mother's, may have been cut away or replaced.

Her cartouche takes four signs

Draw the oval and put the sun disc at the top. Set the three heart-and-windpipe signs below it, side by side or stacked, each a round heart with a stem rising out of it. Close the oval with its bar at the bottom.

Write Neferure in a cartouche

Questions

Who was Neferure's father?

Thutmose II, Hatshepsut's husband and half-brother. Neferure was their only known child, and Thutmose III, his son by a minor wife, was her half-brother.

How do you pronounce Neferure?

Most people say "NEF-er-oo-ray" or "nefer-u-ra". Egyptian writing left out vowels, so these are modern conventions. You will also see the spelling Neferura.

Was Neferure Senenmut's daughter?

No source says so. His titles call him her steward and tutor, and that is why the statues show him holding her.

Did Neferure become queen?

She held the queen's priestly office of God's Wife of Amun, but no text calls her the great royal wife of a king. Whether she married Thutmose III is still debated.

Glossary

cartouche: An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
dynasty: A line of kings counted together, usually one family. Egyptologists number Egypt's kings in about 30 dynasties, following the priest Manetho.
God's Wife of Amun: A title of royal women who served the god Amun at Thebes. In the Late Period the God's Wife ran Amun's great estate there.
Lower Egypt: The north of Egypt, the flat Nile Delta from around Memphis to the sea. It is called lower because it is downstream.
mummy: A body dried and wrapped in linen so that it would last. Egyptians believed the spirit needed it in the afterlife.
regent: Someone who rules for a king who is too young. Hatshepsut ruled so for the boy Thutmose III before she was crowned king herself.
relief: A carving on a flat surface. In raised relief the background is cut away. In sunk relief the figures are cut into the stone.
stela: An upright stone slab carved with words and pictures, set up in tombs and temples or to mark a border.
tomb: A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.