Egypt: Tiye (1398-1338 BCE), Great Queen of Pharaoh Amenhotep III of the 18th Dynasty (r.c....

Tiye (c. 1398 BC - 1338 BC, also spelled Taia, Tiy and Tiyi) was the daughter of Yuya and Tjuyu (also spelled Thuyu). She became the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III and matriarch of the Amarna family from which many members of the royal family of Ancient Egypt were born. Tiye's father, Yuya, was a wealthy landowner from the Upper Egyptian town of Akhmin, where he served as a priest and superintendent of oxen. It sometimes is suggested that Tiye's father, Yuya, was of foreign descent due to the features of his mummy and the many different spellings of his name, which might imply it was a non-Egyptian name in origin. Some suggest that the queen's strong political and unconventional religious views might have been due not just to a strong character, but to mixed Nubian, Sudanese or Asian origin.