Betrest (also read as Batyires,Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton: The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, 2004, and BatiresGrajetski Ancient Egyptian Queens: a hieroglyphic dictionary Golden House Publications, pg. 4-5) was a queen of Ancient Egypt. She lived during the First Dynasty.

Name

Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egypt ...

may have considered the first two glyphs as part of a title, and reads the name on the Cairo stone fragment as Tarset.

Henri Gauthier Henri Louis Marie Alexandre Gauthier (19 September 1877 – 1950) was a French Egyptologist and geographer. In 1903 he entered the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology of Cairo. He made extensive excavations at Dra Abu el-Naga and El Qattah ( ...

reads Tef-ti-iriset, I.E.S. Edwards and Toby Wilkinson read Bat-iry-set. Today her name is commonly read as, ''Betrest'' or ''Batyires''. According to Silke Roth the Name ''Batyires'' means "may Bata be favorably disposed toward her". She thinks that the queen's name was connected to the ancestor-deity ''Bata'' (also read as ''Baty'').Silke Roth: ''Die Königsmütter des Alten Ägypten''. Wiesbaden 2001, , p. 26–30.

Toby Wilkinson Toby Alexander Howard Wilkinson, (born 1969) is an English Egyptologist and academic. After studying Egyptology at the University of Cambridge, he was Lady Wallis Budge Research Fellow in Egyptology at Christ's College, Cambridge (1993 to 199 ...

instead translates the name with "motherhood is her companion" and points to the possible position of the queen as a mother of a king who followed her husband, King

Den Den may refer to: * Den (room), a small room in a house * Maternity den, a lair where an animal gives birth Media and entertainment * ''Den'' (album), 2012, by Kreidler * Den (''Battle Angel Alita''), a character in the ''Battle Angel Alita' ...

or Anedjib.Toby A. H. Wilkinson: ''Royal annals of ancient Egypt : the Palermo stone and its associated fragments''. Taylor and Francis, London 2000, , p. 125.

Identity

Betrest is said to have been the mother of

Semerkhet Semerkhet is the Horus name of an Early Dynastic Period of Egypt, early Egyptian pharaoh, king who ruled during the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty. This ruler became known through a tragic legend handed down by the historian Manetho, who r ...

. Her name appears in Line III on the Cairo stone fragment ''C1'', where she bears the title ''Mut'' (meaning "mother"). The identity of her husband is disputed. Some consider King

to have been her husband. If so, King Anedjib would have been a (half-)brother of King Semerkhet. Another theory is that Betrest was the wife of the short-ruled Anedjib. Possibly, she also is identified on a stela found at Abydos.G. T. Martin: ''An Early Dynastic Stela from Abydos: private or royal?'', In: S. Quirke: ''Discovering Egypt from the Neva, The Egyptological Legacy of Oleg D. Berlev'', Berlin 2003 , p. 79-84. The name of the person on the stela included a ram-hieroglyph (which commonly reads "Ba") and the signs "s" and "t" are visible. If this monument belongs to Queen Betrest, then it also preserves part of a title with a

Horus Horus or Heru, Hor, Har in Ancient Egyptian, is one of the most significant ancient Egyptian deities who served many functions, most notably as god of kingship and the sky. He was worshipped from at least the late prehistoric Egypt until the P ...

-falcon sign, which may be part of the ''She Who Sees Horus'' title, which is a common title for royal queens in the

Old Kingdom In ancient Egyptian history, the Old Kingdom is the period spanning c. 2700–2200 BC. It is also known as the "Age of the Pyramids" or the "Age of the Pyramid Builders", as it encompasses the reigns of the great pyramid-builders of the Fourth ...

of ancient Egypt. Silke Roth and Toby Wilkinson point out, however, that the ram-hieroglyph was read differently in early times. The reading as "Ba" (meaning "soul"), does not appear before the Old Kingdom period and during the two first dynasties the ram-sign was read as, ''Khnemu'' (for the deity ''Khnum'') or ''Ser'' (meaning "sheep", "ram", or "begetter"). This reading is promoted by the hieroglyph for "s" on the stela. In sum the reading on the stela had to be ''Seret'', which means "mother sheep" or "she of the ram". It seems that the later ramesside scribes, who compiled the Annal stone (and therefore the Cairo stone inscription), had no knowledge of the older readings for the ram sign and simply read "Ba", changing ''Seret'' into ''Batyires''.

Tomb

If the lady ''Betrest'' is the same person as the lady ''Seret'' of the first dynasty stela, then Betrest was buried in the necropolis of King Den at Abydos. Her tomb comprises a chamber that is structurally nestled into the entrance of Den's own funerary chamber and therefore, is subsidiary to his burial. There are two chambers fitting this description, one on the left side of the entrance and the other on the right. The two chambers differ in size but both are visibly larger than the ordinary subsidiary tombs of retainers. This peculiarity points to the privileged status that Betrest/Seret must have enjoyed during this king's reign. Indeed, only queens and royal mothers were allowed to be buried so close to the king. Unfortunately, it is not recorded in which of the two chambers the stela was found.

References

{{Queens of Ancient Egypt 30th-century BC women Queens consort of the First Dynasty of Egypt