Many religions and cultures have an answer to Who was the first woman?

But the records of those answers were all written thousands of years after any such women lived. For historians, the more answerable question is Who was the first woman named in a record written during or close to her own lifetime?

Neithhotep was a queen in Egypt's very first dynasty. Not much is known about her for certain, but what we do know is that she kicked off a very long list of women in the historical record.

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