Nubian women 

Women held high status in Nubian cultures reflecting their roles in community subsistence, social order, and the transmission of intergenerational knowledge, besides childbearing. It is possibly because of such esteem that, from the Middle Kingdom (2055-1685 BCE) through the Roman era (30 BCE-395 CE), they held important roles in Egyptian society and the cult of Hathor, a cow-headed goddess connected to music, dance, love, sexuality, fertility and intoxication. Nubian women were frequently involved in Hathoric celebrations as ritual dancers, singers and musicians. These links were later expressed in the form of an Egyptian myth, the Myth of the Distant Goddess. According to it, the goddess Tefnut left Egypt and the gods Shu and Thoth ventured in Nubia to bring her back; pacified, she coalesced with Hathor. Women from Nubia were likely incorporated in the Egyptian royal court for political reasons (e.g. diplomatic marriages) and their perceived connections with Egyptian religious life can be seen as a further ideological justification of Egyptian superiority. For instance, at least three of the royal wives of Mentuhotep II, the first king of Middle Kingdom Egypt, were from different parts of Nubia and priestesses of Hathor. It is unknown how these women received the roles ascribed to them by Egyptian society and how they articulated their self-identity.