Gilukhipa, or more probable ''Kilu-Hepa'' in the

Hurrian language Hurrian is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language spoken by the Hurrians (Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotami ...

, in the

Egyptian language The Egyptian language, or Ancient Egyptian (; ), is an extinct branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages that was spoken in ancient Egypt. It is known today from a large corpus of surviving texts, which were made accessible to the modern world ...

''Kirgipa'' (fl. early 14th c. BCE), was the daughter of Shuttarna II, king of

Mitanni Mitanni (–1260 BC), earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, ; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat in Assyrian records, or in Ancient Egypt, Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian language, Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria (region), Syria an ...

. She was the sister of

Tushratta Tushratta ( Akkadian: and ) was a king of Mitanni, 1358–1335 BCE, at the end of the reign of Amenhotep III and throughout the first half the reign of Akhenaten. He was the son of Shuttarna II. Tushratta stated that he was the grandson of A ...

(later King of Mitanni), Biria-Waza and Artashumara.

Biography

For political reasons, Gilukhipa was sent to

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

to join

Amenhotep III Amenhotep III ( , ; "Amun is satisfied"), also known as Amenhotep the Magnificent or Amenhotep the Great and Hellenization, Hellenized as Amenophis III, was the ninth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty. According to d ...

in marriage. The Egyptian pharaoh made a special issue of commemorative scarabs on the occasion of his marriage to Gilukhipa in his 10th regnal year (ca.1378–1376 BCE), where he recorded that the princess was escorted by 317 ladies-in-waiting, women from the Mitanni king's royal palace.Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson (2004), p.154 Gilukhipa became known as the "Secondary King's Wife," meaning she was secondary to Amenhotep III's chief wife, Queen

Tiye Tiye (c. 1398 BC – 1338 BC, also spelled Tye, Taia, Tiy and Tiyi) was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III, mother of pharaoh Akhenaten and grandmother of pharaoh Tutankhamun; her parents were Yuya and Thuya. In 2010 ...

. Twenty-six years later, her niece Tadukhepa also became Amenhotep's wife.

References

{{Queens of Ancient Egypt 14th-century BC Egyptian women Hurrian people Queens consort of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt Wives of Amenhotep III Ancient Mesopotamian women