Will of Naunakhte

Naunakhte was the wife of the Egyptian scribe Kenherchepeschef. She is known by a Testament, on which she disinherited some of her children. The document is regarded as a proof of the high status of women in Ancient Egypt.

Naunakhte married at twelve the 54 -year-old Kenherchepeschef. In her second marriage she gave birth to eight children. At the time of Ramses V. she left by the scribe Amunnacht draft a will in which she left only four of these children of her first husband's inherited wealth. The other four were disinherited because they had not taken care of her elderly mother. The Testament of Naunakhte was found in the workers' settlement of Deir el -Medina and is now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It shows that ancient Egyptian women were entitled to have their own heritage and independently to bring actions in court.