Bittě-Yâ, daughter of Pharaoh (1 Chr 4,18), and Bint(i)-ʿAnat, daughter of Ramesses II

Abstract

According to 1 Chr 4,18, a Judahite named Mered, who lived in the 12th or 11th century BCE, was married to a "daughter/granddaughter of Pharaoh". The name of the woman, vocalized Bittě-Yâ in the Babylonian and Alexandrian traditions, is Semitic rather than Egyptian, but it exhibits non-Israelite features and is unique in the Bible. It is very similar to Bint(i)-cAnat, the Canaanite name borne by the daughter/wife of Ramesses II in the 13th century BCE. For chronological and other reasons, the biblical Bittě-Yâ cannot be identified with this Egyptian princess/queen of the nineteenth dynasty; however, since many names of Ramesses II's children were re-used in the twentieth dynasty, there may well have been a 12th/11th-century Ramessid lady named Bint(i)-cAnat, perhaps a granddaughter of Ramesses III, who married a Judahite.