In Simple Terms
An old photograph of clay seals may show that Meritneith ruled Egypt about 5,000 years ago. The image cannot settle the question, especially because the original seals are lost. But a mark that may be linked to her gives researchers a new reason to think she held power in her own right, not just as a royal relative or caretaker.
A Tomb Fit for Royalty
Meritneith lived about 5,000 years ago, in the earliest period of Egyptian kingship and centuries before the pyramids at Giza were built. Available evidence suggests that she may have been the daughter of Djer, regarded as the third king of Egypt’s First Dynasty. Her burial shows that she received exceptional honors: she was laid to rest in a royal cemetery at Abydos, a sacred city that held the graves of rulers from that era.
Her tomb was more than a place to bury the dead. It was furnished with luxury goods and was expected to contain carefully crafted objects made from stone, ivory, and copper. These materials, along with the choice of burial site, point to a woman at the heart of royal power rather than an ordinary member of the court. Yet the tomb’s grandeur cannot, by itself, tell us what her political role was. High status and close ties to a king do not necessarily mean that she occupied the throne.
For that reason, Meritneith’s position has long been debated. Some scholars have suggested that she shared in ruling the country, while others think she managed state affairs during a period of transition as a regent. A royal woman buried with extraordinary wealth may have wielded power, but she could also have represented the ruling family or held influence without carrying the title of ruler. Distinguishing among these possibilities requires evidence beyond signs of wealth.
A Royal Mark Missing from Her Tomb Marker
One kind of evidence researchers use to identify the people buried in ancient tombs is an upright stone slab, known as a funerary stela. It usually bears inscriptions identifying the person it commemorates. Meritneith’s tomb marker does not carry a symbol that could have offered direct evidence that she was a ruler when she died. That absence has made it difficult to compare her case with those of the kings buried nearby.
The symbol in question is the serekh, a royal frame that contains a miniature image of a palace façade. It was usually topped by a sign representing the king’s protective god. Horus, shown as a falcon, was among the deities most closely associated with the symbol. A serekh used alongside a ruler’s name can indicate royal status, so its absence from Meritneith’s tomb marker has made researchers cautious about calling her a reigning queen.
But the fact that the symbol does not appear on her tomb marker does not necessarily mean it was never used elsewhere. That is why the clay seals at the center of a new study matter. They shift attention from what is missing from her tomb monument to another object linked to her possible name—one that may preserve a royal sign not found on the marker itself.
Thirteen Seals in an Old Photograph
The researchers, Sue Kelly, an Egyptologist at Charles University in Czechia, and Crystal Miller of the University of Bucharest in Romania, examined a group of 13 clay seals. The seals were discovered in another tomb in 1946 by the British Egyptologist Walter Emery. One seal in the group drew particular attention because it carried two serekh symbols: one associated with Djer and another that may bear the name Meritneith.
The original seals were not available for examination; they had been lost long ago. What survived was an old black-and-white photograph, with details so faint that it was difficult to make out the symbols. Emery recognized the seal’s significance when he found it, but later researchers did not consider the photograph convincing enough to treat it as clear evidence that Meritneith had a royal symbol of her own.
Rather than treating the photograph as an easy-to-read record, Kelly and Miller reexamined it with digital tools designed to improve contrast and bring out edges and features. This process did not recover the lost seals or provide new physical evidence, but it helped reveal details that had been obscured in the surviving image. The researchers were therefore able to read the design of the second serekh more clearly than the original photograph had allowed.
Neith Instead of a Falcon
The central finding is that the second serekh appears to be topped by the symbol of the goddess Neith, rather than the sign usually associated with male rulers of that period. Kelly considers the choice of Neith significant: in her interpretation, this was not a symbol that would have been used for a male king. If the name Meritneith has been read correctly on the seal, the combination of her name and a royal symbol offers important evidence that she may have been treated not merely as someone connected to the throne by family ties or regency, but as a ruler herself.
It is important, however, to distinguish what can be seen in the photograph from what researchers infer from it. The enhanced image makes the symbol easier to discern, but linking the serekh to Meritneith—and deciding what that means politically—requires interpretation. The study is not based on surviving seals that can be examined again firsthand; it relies on an old photograph of a lost object. The newly identified symbol gives the case for her rule more weight, but it does not resolve every question about the reading of the name or the role of the person who bore it.
Nor does the use of a symbol different from the familiar one associated with male rulers, on its own, establish the full extent or duration of Meritneith’s authority. Still, it raises the possibility that royal symbols in Egypt’s earliest period were not restricted to a single form, and that a woman from the ruling family could take her place in the language of royal legitimacy in a distinctive way. The seal is therefore more than a decorative detail: it may offer insight into how power was represented in a society whose political system was still taking shape.
Why the Title Pharaoh Doesn’t Quite Fit
It is worth avoiding the use of later terminology for Meritneith’s time. The word pharaoh did not become a title for Egypt’s rulers until about 1,000 years after she lived. Calling her the first woman pharaoh may be understandable in modern conversation, but it does not reflect the title that would have been used in her era. It is more accurate to ask whether she ruled as a queen or sovereign, while recognizing that titles and symbols changed over time.
Meritneith lived during a very early stage in the development of Egyptian kingship, in the First Dynasty. In such a setting, the boundaries between ruling directly, serving as regent, and sharing in the administration of the state may not have matched what people imagine when they think of more established kingdoms from later periods. Researchers therefore study many kinds of evidence—from tomb locations to inscriptions and seals—to build a more realistic picture of a person’s status and role.
The missing symbol on one monument and its possible appearance on a seal found elsewhere also show how fragmentary archaeological evidence can be. Objects do not always survive intact, and original artifacts may disappear while photographs remain. When the surviving image is faint, digital tools can help recover details, but they do not automatically turn a possibility into a certainty. Here, the value of the technology is that it allows a closer reading of the evidence that remains; it cannot replace everything that has been lost.
A Sign That Women May Have Had Room to Lead
Susan Onstine, an Egyptologist at the University of Memphis who was not involved in the study, says this kind of research may help scholars reconsider common assumptions about titles and burial goods. When researchers assume in advance that the highest offices belonged to men, signs of a woman’s power may be interpreted as evidence of regency or family influence—even when clues deserve a more open-minded examination.
Although Onstine sees merit in the new work, she does not think this reading will end the debate over Meritneith. The evidence remains limited, the original seal is lost, and interpreting its symbols still depends on a historical photograph. But, she notes, the research supports the idea that the earliest period of Egyptian kingship may have allowed room for women to lead, rather than requiring us to assume that women were categorically barred from ruling.
The study was published in the journal Prague Egyptian Studies, giving the long-running debate about Meritneith a new basis for discussion. Its importance does not lie in offering a final verdict that cannot be revised. Rather, it brings together clues from her royal tomb and a reexamined photograph, and asks a precise question about how power was expressed in early Egypt.
The Bottom Line
The clay seals make Meritneith a strong candidate for the first woman to rule Egypt, but they do not settle the question on their own. Her lavish burial and its contents point to royal status, while the serekh in the enhanced photograph—apparently associated with the goddess Neith—adds possible evidence that she held power directly. The lost original seals and the limitations of the photograph are reasons for caution. Even so, the case suggests that the history of rule in ancient Egypt may have been more varied than traditional assumptions about who could claim the throne suggest.