The Inscription of Queen Katimala at Semna

Textual Evidence for the Origins of the Napatan State

by John Coleman Darnell

Book cover: The Inscription of Queen Katimala at Semna

Extent: 130 pages

Publisher: Yale Egyptology

Subjects: Ancient Egypt

Series: Yale Egyptological Studies

Series volume number: 7

Language: English

(Paperback) (Published)

(December 2006)

ISBN: 9780974002538

Price: $20.00

In stock

(PDF) (Published)

(December 2006)

ISBN: 9781950343058

Price: $20.00

This is the first complete translation and commentary on the important tableau and inscription of Queen Katimala/Karimala at Semna. Proper understanding of the paleography, grammar, and content reveals Katimala to have been a Nubian ruler at the time of the Twenty-First to Twenty-Second Dynasties of Ancient Egypt. She emerges as a political and military leader who took control of at least Lower Nubia in the wake of failed military activities on the part of a male predecessor. Katimala’s inscription is not illegible, as has often been stated, but is a well-composed Lower Nubian example of a politico-religious manifesto applying many of the conventions of early Egyptian literary and historical compositions.

  • By (author) John Coleman Darnell