Expressions of Gender Fluidity and Rules of Decorum in the Decorative Program of Tawosret’s Tomb

In the late 19^th Dynasty, KV 14, a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, was built for Tawosret, a royal woman who was the Hmt nswt wrt of Seti II, became the regent of his successor, Siptah, and, after Siptah’s death, reigned as pharaoh in her own right for approximately two years. According to H. Altenmüller, the tomb was cut and decorated in phases corresponding to the different stages of Tawosret’s career. Consequently, KV 14 differs in significant ways from both Ramesside kings’ and queens’ tombs.  While its plan is essentially that of a standard Ramesside king’s tomb with narrowed corridors and piers, its decorative program is comprised of both “kingly” and “non-kingly” scenes, the latter prevalent in the upper half of the tomb.

Furthermore, with its location in the Valley of the Kings and scenes depicting a king (alongside Tawosret as queen) in the first corridor, KV 14 did not conform to the rules of decorum, employed in the tombs of 19^th and 20^th Dynasty royal women buried in the Valley of the Queens, requiring the physical and conceptual separation of Ramesside royal women from their kings.  These changes suggest that Tawosret, even when holding the “great royal wife” title, may have wielded sufficient power to transcend or blur the boundaries of the otherwise well-defined Ramesside queenly role. Accordingly, new rules of decorum and modes of expression were developed for the decorative program of KV 14 in order to convey the gender fluidity necessary for Tawosret’s postmortem regeneration, while also accommodating her changing roles and status.  E. Hornung addressed one facet of this phenomenon when he astutely observed that some of the male deities depicted in this tomb possess epithets with feminine grammatical gender, thus indicating Tawosret’s identification with these same gods.

The purpose of this paper is to take Hornung’s observations further by examining the specific decorative features that convey Tawosret’s gender fluidity and placing them within the context of the conventions and rules of decorum that determined the form and decoration of the tombs of Ramesside kings, queens, and princes.