Kandake (royal title)

Kandake, kadake or kentake (Meroitic: 𐦲𐦷𐦲𐦡 kdke),Kirsty
Rowan, "Revising the Sound Value of Meroitic D: A Phonological Approach," Beitrage zur Sudanforschung 10 (2009). often Latinised as Candace (, Kandakē), was the Meroitic term for the sister of the king of Kush who, due to the matrilineal succession, would bear the next heir, making her a queen mother. She had her own court, probably acted as a landholder and held a prominent secular role as regent. Contemporary Greek and Roman sources treated it, incorrectly, as a name. The name Candace is derived from the way the word is used in the New Testament ().

A kandake who ruled in her own right bore in addition the title qore, the same title carried by male rulers., pp. 213–214.

Biblical usage
In the New Testament, a treasury official of "Candace, queen of the Aethiopians", returning from a trip to Jerusalem, met with Philip the Evangelist:

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." This is a desert place.  And he rose and went. And there was an Aethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Aethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship

He discussed with Philip the meaning of a perplexing passage from the Book of Isaiah. Philip explained the scripture to him and he was promptly baptised in some nearby water. The eunuch 'went on his way, rejoicing', and presumably therefore reported back on his conversion to the Kandake.

List of ruling kandakes
At least eleven kandakes also ruled in their own right as monarchs (i.e. queens regnant) of Kush:

 Nahirqo (middle 2nd century BC)
 An unknown queen regnant (end of the 2nd–first half of the 1st century BC)
 Amanirenas (end of the 1st century BC–beginning of the 1st century AD)
Amanishakheto (early 1st century AD)
Shanakdakhete (first half of the 1st century AD)
Nawidemak (first half of the 1st century AD?)
Amanitore (middle 1st century AD)
Amanikhatashan (middle 2nd century AD?)
Amanikhalika (second half of the 2nd century AD)
patrapeamani (early 4th century)
Amanipilade (mid-4th century)

Based on the reading of a single inscription, some lists give two later kandakes named Maloqorebar (266–283 AD) and Lahideamani (306-314 AD). A recently discovered inscription corrects this earlier reading, however, showing that neither was a woman.Claude Rilly (2017), "New Light on the Royal Lineage in the Last Decades of the Meroitic Kingdom: The inscription of the Temple of Amun at Meroe Found in 2012 by the Sudanese–Canadian Mission", Sudan and Nubia 21: 144–147 (appendix to "The Amun Temple at Meroe Revisited" by Krzysztof Grzymski).

 Related pages 
 Kandake of the Sudanese Revolution

References

Sources

*
Category:History of Africa
Category:Women in the New Testament
Category:Female regents in Africa
Category:African queen mothers
Category:Queen of Sheba