КЕМ БЫЛА СОРАТНИЦА ЦАРИЦЫ ДАЛУКИ?
WHO WAS QUEEN DALUQA’S FEMALE ADHERENT?

Summary/Abstract: The ancient Egyptians remembered Queen Tawosret’s reign until the 10th century A.D., when the first extant Arabian chronicles were written. In these chronicles Tawosret is known as Daluqa, and her story is more a legend rather than a narration reflecting the historical reality. One version of this legend tells about the sorceress named Tadura, the female adherent of Daluqa. The previous researchers thought that Tadura is only a fabulous character introduced in the story due to the demands of the folk tale genre. This paper intends to find her real historical prototype. Analyzing the name of Tadura linguistically, the author comes to the suggestion that it may originate from one Egyptian priestess title – *tA-dwA-nTr or *tA-Drt-nTr, which was given to Theban Amun priestesses during the 1st millennium B.C. These regal women were the actual rulers of Thebaid and could be remembered by the Egyptians for a long time due to their building activity. Their rise to such a position begins just after Queen Tawosret’s (legendary Daluqa) reign. The association of this pagan priestess with magic is obvious. The legendary Tadura’s kin and Amun priestesses existed until the catastrophic foreign invasions into Egypt – Assyrian and Persian ones, respectively. Therefore, the image of Tadura may be a reminiscence of the Theban female priestly institute of “Amun’s consorts” preserved in the local (Theban) folklore tradition of the past. The very local character of this tradition seems to explain why Tadura is known from only one, the earliest, Arabian chronicle and disappears from the later ones.

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