Category Archives: Ruler

Sobekneferu is believed to be the first female Pharaoh to rule Egypt in her own right, to claim to full titles of a pharaoh, and is also the first woman listed in the Turin King List, an ancient papyrus scroll compiled during the reign of Rameses II in the 1200s BC of all the pharaohs that came before.

Merneith ruled Egypt circa 2950. She may also have been a regent for her son after the death of her husband.

Nitocris is a woman who may have ruled Egypt in the 22nd century BC, or who may have been a literary invention centuries later. According to Herodotus, she lured her brother’s murderers into a banquet hall and then killed them by diverting the waters of the Nile to flood the room.

Neithhotep may have been the first recorded female monarch in world history, circa 3,000 to 3200 BC. She is believed to have been married to either the first or second pharaoh of unified Egypt.