Mutemwiya

Mutemwiya (also written as Mutemwia, Mutemuya or Mutemweya) was a minor wife of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Thutmose IV, and the mother of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. Mutemwiya's name means "Mut in the divine barque". While unconfirmed, it has been suggested that she acted as regent during the minority of her son Amenhotep III. Biography Mutemwiya is not attested during the reign of her husband Thutmose IV. She would have been overshadowed at court by the chief queens Nefertari, and later Iaret. Mutemwiya is only shown on the monuments of her son Amenhotep III. While she occasionally was identified by some researchers as a daughter of King Artatama I of Mitanni, no evidence proves that she is the same person, and nothing about her own background is known. There seemed to be evidence that she was not a daughter of Artatama, but this theory has been discarded. Cyril Aldred has suggested that Mutemwiya be a sister of Yuya. He argues that since Mutemwiya was present during the early years of her son's reign, she might have engineered the marriage between Tiye and the young king to connect her family with royalty. However, this theory is poorly supported by texts or archaeological finds.