Tabiry

Who is Tabiry?

Tabiry was a Nubian queen dated to the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt.

Tabiry was the daughter of Alara of Nubia and his wife Kasaqa and the wife of King Piye. She held some interesting titles: Main King’s Wife, first of her majesty and “The Great One of the Foreign Country”. She also holds the more standard titles of King's Wife, King's Daughter, and King's Sister.

Tabiry was buried in a pyramid at El-Kurru. A carved granite funerary stela found in her tomb mentions she is the daughter of Alara of Nubia and the wife of Piye. The stela is now in Khartoum. The stela gives Tabiry further titles. Reisner had initially translated one of her titles as 'the great chieftainess of the Temehu', and concluded that the royal house of Kush was somehow related to the Libyans. Others have since shown that her title should be read as "Great One of the Desert-dwellers", showing her title connects her to the Nubians.

A blue faience shabti of Tabiry is now in the Petrie Museum in London.