Vashti was a queen of Persia, and the wife of King Xerxes (r. 486-465 BC). In the third year of King Xerxes' reign, he held a 6-month celebration which ended with a 7-day feast at his palace in Susa. Queen Vashti was either executed or banished for her refusal to appear at the king's banquet.
Queen Jezebel married King Ahab (r. 874-853 BC), of Samaria, the northern kingdom of Israel. Her daughter, Athaliah, was queen of Judah (r. 841–835 BC) and the only female monarch to sit on David’s throne in biblical history.
Queen Artemisia I was of Carian-Greek ethnicity by her father Lygdamis I (r. 520-484 BC), and half-Cretan by her mother. She took the throne after the death of her husband.
Some sources state that Sagburu of Ereš became embroiled in a plot to overthrow Esarhaddon c. 671 BC. Others that she aided King Enmerkar of Uruk (c. 3100BC), to defeat his arch-nemesis, the king of Aratta, in Enmerkar and Enšukešdana.
Šērūʾa-ēṭirat was the eldest daughter of Assyrian King Esarhaddon (r. 681 to 669 BC) and the older sister of twins, Ashurbanipal and Šamaš-šuma-ukin, crown princes of Assyria and of Babylonia. She was likely involved in politics.
