A new analysis of a decades-old photo is revealing new details about a powerful woman who ruled Egypt 5,000 years ago, a new study finds.
The woman, named Meretneith (also spelled Merneith or Meret-Neith), reigned during the first dynasty, a time not long after Egypt was united under a single ruler, according to the new research. The study, published in the September issue of the journal Prague Egyptological Studies, enhanced an old photo of a now lost artifact revealing that Meretneith's name was written in a way reserved for a ruler for Egypt.
The finding was more than 70 years in the making. In the 1940s, archaeologist William B. Emery found 13 mud stoppers, or seals that identify an object's owner, around the mouth of a tomb shaft at Saqqara. Each contained a series of four serekhs — a series of signs that gave the name of a ...
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