Born: Unknown (1900s BCE), Egypt (assumed)
Died: Unknown (1800s BCE)
Country most active: Egypt
Also known as: Neferusobek, Sbk-nfrw
Rulers: The first female pharaoh transcript
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. That being said, it must be noted that the list was seriously fragmented as the result of poor handling after it was discovered in 1820, and historians have discovered discrepancies between the list and other sources. So while valuable, it is not a definitive source of information.
We know that Sobekneferu ruled for almost four years in the 18th century BC. But she may not have been Egypt’s first queen regnant (meaning a queen who rules in her own right rather than as the wife or mother of a male ruler). 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. Historians have since suggested that Nitocris never existed, that the name was conflated with a misspelling of a male ruler from the time. While that’s probably true based on the current evidence – it’s still a great story.