page_title: Sobekneferu
section_title: Monuments and tomb
hierarchical_section_title: Sobekneferu / Monuments and tomb
caption_attribution_description: Buste de la reine Sobeknéferourê - XIIe dynastie égyptienne
context_page_description: Sobekneferu reigned as pharaoh of Egypt after the death of Amenemhat IV. She was the last ruler of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt and ruled Egypt for almost four years from 1806 to 1802 BC. Her name means "the beauty of Sobek."
context_section_description: Few monuments have been discovered for her, although many of her (headless) statues have been preserved including the base of a representation of a king's royal daughter that was discovered in Gezer and bears her name. One statue with a head is known. A bust in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin (Inv. no. 14476), lost in World War II, could be identified as belonging to her. Today, the sculpture is known only from photographic images and plaster casts. It came in 1899 to the museum. The head fits on top of the lower part of a royal statue discovered at Semna. The latter can definitely be identified as royal because the royal symbol "unification of the two countries" appears on the side of her throne. It is known that she made additions to the funerary complex of Amenemhat III at Hawara (called a labyrinth by Herodotus) and also built structures at Heracleopolis Magna.
  A fine cylinder seal bearing her name and royal titulary is located in the British Museum. A Nile graffito, at the Nubian fortress of Kumma records the Nile inundation height of 1.83 meters in Year 3 of her reign. Another inscription discovered in the Eastern Desert records "year 4, second month of the Season of the Emergence". Her monumental works consistently associate her with Amenemhat III rather than Amenemhat IV, supporting the theory that she was the royal daughter of Amenemhat III and perhaps, only a stepsister of Amenemhat IV. The Danish Egyptologist, Kim Ryholt, notes that the contemporary sources from her reign show that Sobekneferu never adopted the title of King's Sister-only "King's Daughter"-which supports this hypothesis. Additionally, all Egyptian rulers were given the title "king", regardless of gender. 
  Her tomb has not been identified positively, although she may have been interred in a pyramid complex in Mazghuna that lacks inscriptions. It is immediately north of a similar complex ascribed to Amenemhat IV. A place called Sekhemneferu is mentioned in a papyrus found at Harageh. This just might be the name of her pyramid.
caption: Bust of Sobekneferu (Louvre)
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