The Children of Adam and Eve

Betrest (Batirytes, Batires Betresh) was a Queen consort of ancient Egypt. She lived during the 1st dynasty.

Flinders Petrie may have considered the first two glyphs as part of a title, and Reads the name on the Palermo Stone fragment as Tarset.

Betrest was the mother of Semerkhet. She is mentioned as Semerkhet's mother on the Palermo Stone fragment which is now in Cairo.

The identity of her husband is disputed. Some consider King Den (Pharaoh) to have been her husband. If so, King Anedjib would have been a (half-)brother of King Semerkhet. Another theory is that Betrest was the wife of the short-lived Anedjib.

She is possibly also identified on a stela found at Abydos. The name of the person on the stela included the sheep-hieroglyph which Reads "Ba" and the signs "s" and "t" are visible. If this monument beLongs to Queen Betrest, then it preservespart of a title with a Horus-falcon sign, which may be part of the She Who Sees Horus title, which is a common title for queen consorts in the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt.

As the fifth or sixth ruler (if Narmer is included) of the First dynasty of Egypt, Anedjib (also Enezib, Adjib, or Andjyeb meaning "The Man with the Bold Heart" or "Safe is his Heart") is poorly attested and fairly obscure within monumentalrecords. He ruled over Egypt for 10 years.

Anedjib was likely a son of Pharaoh Den. Several wives are known for Den, but their respective children are not known and the identity of Anedjib's mother remains a mystery. Anedjib's wife may have been Queen Betrest based on the fact that sheis the mother of the next Pharaoh Semerkhet. Others conjecture that Betrest was actually a wife of Pharaoh Den and that Semerkhet is a (half?-)brother of Anedjib. It is possible that Anedjib's mother was Seshemetka.

While the 3rd century BC Priest Manetho records Anedjib ruling Egypt for 26 years, virtually all Egyptologists reject this figure in favor of a far shorter reign due to the relative scarcity of attestations known for this king in the monumentalrecord. Toby Wilkinson's reconstruction of the near-contemporary Palermo Stone shows that Anedjib's reign length was only "10 complete or partial years." Anedjib's penultimate and final year is recorded in Cairo Fragment One register III. WhileAnedjib is known to have "celebrated a Sed festival, something which did not normally take place until a king had been on the throne for some considerable time," this was presumably because
"Anedjib was elderly when he succeeded Den, and that the celebration of a Sed festival was considered auspicious to renew the powers of a king past his prime."

Anedjib's predecessor and father, Den, enjoyed a Long reign of 30+ years, implying that his successor Anedjib was elderly when he assumed power. Contemporary records suggest that he ruled Egypt during a time of political instability and dynasticconflict between Lower and Upper Egypt. Anedjib himself is presumed to have originated from an area of the Upper Egyptian city of Abydos since he is recorded as "Merbiapen", a Thinite king, on the Saqqara King List from the tomb of Thunery.Anedjib was forced to put down several uprisings in Lower Egypt. Numerous Stone vases bearing his serekh had their inscriptions erased under his successor, Semerkhet, which suggests that Semerkhet deposed Anedjib.

Anedjib's tomb, Tomb 10, at Umm el-Qa'ab in Abydos affirms the impression of the crisis-filled nature of his short reign. The tomb is considered to be "one of the worst built and smallest among the Abydos royal tombs, a mere 53.75 x 29.5 ft(16.4 x 9 m)." It was built entirely of Wood rather than Stone, and was of poor construction quality while "the surrounding 64 graves of retainers were also of low standard."