Nefertiti – Queen, Bust & Husband Akhenaten – HISTORY
contents
- nefertiti as queen
- nefertiti as possible ruler
- bust of nefertiti
Nefertiti, one of the most mysterious and powerful women of ancient Egypt, was queen alongside Pharaoh Akhenaten from 1353 to 1336 B.C. and she may have ruled the new kingdom directly after the death of her husband. Her reign was a time of tremendous cultural upheaval, as Akhenaten reoriented the political and religious structure of Egypt around the worship of the sun god Aten. Nefertiti is best known for the painted sandstone bust of her, which was rediscovered in 1913 and became a global icon of feminine beauty and power.
nefertiti as queen
Nefertiti may have been the daughter of Ay, an important adviser who would become pharaoh after King Tut’s death in 1323 B.C. An alternative theory suggests that she was a princess of the Mittani kingdom in northern Syria. She was the great royal wife of her husband (her favorite consort) when he ascended to the throne in Thebes as Amenhotep IV. In the fifth year of his reign, she displaced Egypt’s chief god, Amun, in favor of Aten, moved the capital north to Amarna, and changed his name to Akhnaten. the beauties of aten, a beautiful woman has come.”
did you know? The beauty of the iconic Nefertiti bust can only be skin deep. CT scans in 2009 revealed that beneath the smooth painted stucco surface lies the thudmose sculptor’s most realistic limestone carving of a woman with wrinkled cheeks and a bump on her nose.
Akhenaten’s transformation of religion brought about radical changes in artistic conventions. Building on idealized images of earlier pharaohs, Akhenaten is sometimes depicted with feminine hips and exaggerated features. Early images of Nefertiti show a stereotypical young woman, but in later ones she is an almost mirror image of Akhenaten. the final renderings of her reveal a majestic yet lifelike figure.
On the walls of tombs and temples built during Akhenaten’s reign, Nefertiti is depicted alongside her husband with a frequency not seen on any other Egyptian queen. In many cases she is shown in positions of power and authority, leading the worship of the Aten, driving a chariot, or beating up an enemy.
After Nefertiti gave birth to six daughters, her husband began taking other wives, including his own sister, with whom he fathered the future King Tut (Tutankhamen). Nefertiti’s third daughter, Ankhesenpaaten, would eventually become the queen of Tutankhamen, her half-brother.
nefertiti as possible ruler
Nefertiti disappears from the historical record around year 12 of Akhenaten’s 17-year reign. She may have died at that time, but it is possible that she became her husband’s official co-regent under the name Neferneferuaten. Akhenaten was followed as pharaoh by Smenkhkare, who some historians suggest may have been another name for Nefertiti. this would not have been unprecedented: in the 15th century B.C. Pharaoh Hatshepsut ruled Egypt in the guise of a man, complete with a ceremonial false beard.
If Nefertiti held power during and beyond Akhenaten’s final years, it is possible that she began the reversal of her husband’s religious policies that would come to fruition during King Tutankhamun’s reign. At one point, Neferneferuaten employed a scribe to make divine offerings to Amun, begging him to return and dispel the darkness of the realm.
bust of nefertiti
on december 6, 1913, a team led by german archaeologist ludwig borchardt discovered a sculpture buried upside down in sandy rubble on the floor of royal sculptor thutmose’s excavated workshop in amarna. The painted figure featured a slender neck, a gracefully proportioned face, and a curious blue cylindrical headdress of a style seen only in images of Nefertiti. Borchardt’s team had an agreement to split their artifacts with the Egyptian government, so the bust was shipped as part of the German portion. A single poor photograph was published in an archaeological journal and the bust was given to the expedition’s sponsor, Jacques Simon, who exhibited it for the next 11 years at his private residence.
in 1922, british egyptologist howard carter discovered the tomb of king tutankhamen. A flurry of international attention followed, and the image of Tutankhamun’s solid gold funerary mask soon became a worldwide symbol of beauty, wealth and power.
A year later, the bust of Nefertiti went on display in Berlin, countering the “English” tut with a German appropriation of old glamour. Through the upheavals of the 20th century, the bust remained in German hands. It was revered by Hitler (who said, “I will never give up the Queen’s Head”), hidden from Allied bombs in a salt mine, and coveted by East Germany during the Cold War. today it attracts more than 500,000 visitors a year to the museum neues de berlin.
