Ahmose-Nefertari

Ahmose-Nefertari of Ancient Egypt was the royal sister and the great royal wife of pharaoh, Ahmose I. Upon the death of Ahmose I, their heir, Kamose, became pharaoh, but was killed in war. Ahmose-Nefertari then became the regent for another son and ruled until he could attain the age to ascend the throne as Amenhotep I. During her regency she was recognized as a formidable warrior, and at her burial she was given special honors for her accomplishments in war. After her death, she was worshiped as a deity in the funerary cult of Thebes.
Her name appears on many monuments, from Saï to Tura. She is known still to have been alive during the first year of the reign of her grandson, Thutmose I. Thus, she apparently outlived her son, Amenhotep I, who reigned over Egypt for nearly twenty-one years after her regency.
She held many titles, among them, she held the office of Second Prophet of Amun, but renounced it sometime during the eighteenth or twenty-second year of the reign of her husband, Ahmose I. At that time, she became the first living, royal woman known to be entitled, God’s Wife of Amun. Her mother, Ahhotep I, royal wife of Seqenenre Tao II and the mother of Ahmose I as well, had held the title of God’s Wife of Amun first; but the title only has been found on her coffin however, and therefore, some Egyptologists assert that she may not have held the office and exercised its duties. In that case, those scholars speculate that the title may have been given to Ahhotep posthumously.
The office of God’s Wife of Amun had existed in earlier dynasties, but previously, the holder of the title was not a woman of the royal line as the cult was not the dominant one in the changing religious traditions of the culture. Once the cult became dominant, and the temple in which the pharaoh officiated, it became a hereditary title and role for the royal women who served as the highest ranking priestess in the administration of the most powerful temple of the country, passing from one generation to another. The holder of this office, be it wife or daughter, was a close adviser who participated in daily contact with the pharaoh during ceremonies and rites.
Religion and government were interwoven inexorably in Ancient Egypt. For that reason, some scholars describe the administration of the temple of Amun as the virtual rulers of the country while Thebes was the capital of Egypt. Later in this same dynasty, one pharaoh, Akhenaten, moved the capital to another city to escape their influence, adopting the primary solar deity worshiped at the new capital instead of Amun, and establishing his own administrators and policies, but as soon as he died, the priests of Amun regained their control of the government, the location of the capital, and the dominance of their deity.