mḏd-r-nbtj

From mḏd (“to strike true, to stay true to, to drive in, to share out, to impose as an obligation”) +‎ r (“concerning, according to, facing, against, etc.”) +‎ nbtj (“the Two Ladies, i.e. the goddesses Nekhbet and Wadjet”). The exact sense is disputed, with a number of proposed hypotheses, but it must certainly be related to Khufu’s serekh name mḏdw, itself of disputed interpretation; a phrase attested in the Coffin Texts CT VI, §307x–308b, may also feature a related construction: jn [N.N.] jr mḏdwt nbtj (“It was [N.N.] who undertook the sharing out of the two crowns (literally, “Two Ladies”)”). Gundlach proposed a meaning of ‘he who shares out in accordance with the Two Ladies’, which Baud rejected in favor of ‘he who receives his dues in accordance with the Two Ladies’. Leprohon instead suggested ‘[he] who has adhered to the Two Ladies’, though this interpretation leaves the preposition unexplained, as mḏd normally takes the thing being stayed true to as a direct object.

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /mɛd͡ʒɛd ɛr nɛbti/
  • Conventional anglicization: medjed-er-nebti

 m

1. A Two Ladies name notably borne by Khufu, a pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty

• Leprohon, Ronald (2013) Denise Doxey, editor, The Great Name: Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, →ISBN, page 35
• von Beckerath, Jürgen (1984) Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen, München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, →ISBN, pages 52, 178
• Baud, Michel (1998) “Une épithète de Rêdjedef et la prétendue tyrannie de Chéops. Étude sur la statuaire de Rêdjedef, II.” in Le Bulletin de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale, volume 98, pages 15–30
• Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1928) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎, volume 2, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, page 192.11