Senenmut

Senenmut (, sometimes spelled Senmut, Senemut, or Senmout) was an 18th Dynasty ancient Egyptian architect and government official. His name means "brother of Mut", but can also translate literally as "brother of the mother"; i.e. "uncle".

== Family == Senenmut was of low commoner birth, born to literate provincial parents, Ramose and Hatnofer (or "Hatnefret") from Iuny (modern Armant). Senenmut is known to have had three brothers (Amenemhet, Minhotep, and Pairy) and two sisters (Ahhotep and Nofrethor). However, only Minhotep is named outside chapel in his tomb TT71 and in his hypogeum TT353, in an inventory on the lid of a chest found in the burial chamber of Ramose and Hatnofer. More information is known about Senenmut than many other non-royal Egyptians because the joint tomb of his parents (the construction of which Senenmut supervised himself) was discovered intact by the Metropolitan Museum in the mid-1930s and preserved. Christine Meyer has offered compelling evidence to show that Senenmut was a bachelor for his entire life: for instance, Senenmut is portrayed alone with his parents in the funerary stelae of his tombs; he was depicted alone, rather than with a wife, in the vignette of Chapter 110 from the Book of the Dead in hypogeum numbered as TT353 and, finally, it was one of Senenmut's own brothers, and not one of his sons, who was charged with the execution of Senenmut's funerary rites. thumb|left|Stone inscribed with the name of Senenmut, from Thebes, Egypt. Neues Museum, Berlin