Nitocris

Manetho and Herodotus both recorded her, writing centuries apart: a queen closing the Sixth Dynasty, thought to be Pepi II's daughter and sister to Merenre Nemtyemsaf II. Manetho credited her with building the third pyramid at Giza; archaeologists now give that monument to Menkaure of the Fourth Dynasty, a thousand years earlier. Egyptologist Kim Ryholt argues she's legendary altogether, a garbled memory of the historical king Neitiqerty Siptah who actually succeeded her brother at the Old Kingdom's end. If she ruled at all, some say it was as regent. The record thins to shadow, and shadow doe…