Nefertiti: Her Life, Beauty, Bust and Marriage to Akhenaten | Middle East And North Africa

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NEFERTITI

Nefertiti bust

Nefertiti is perhaps the best known queen of Egypt. She is depicted in more sculpture and artwork than her famous husband, the sun-disk worshipping Pharaoh Akhenaten, who tried to introduce monotheism to ancient Egypt. Queen Nefertiti was the stepmother to King Tutankhamun and may have ruled as a pharaoh in her own right. She lived in the 14th century B.C. during the 18th dynasty, but the years of Nefertiti's birth and death are not known with any certainty. [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, February 1, 2023]

Dr Kate Spence of Cambridge University wrote for the BBC: “Akhenaten's 'great king's wife' was Nefertiti and they had six daughters. There were also other wives, including the enigmatic Kiya who may have been the mother of Tutankhamun. Royal women play an unusually prominent role in the art of the period and this is particularly true of Nefertiti who is frequently depicted alongside her husband. Nefertiti disappears from the archaeological record around year 12 and some have argued that she reappears as the enigmatic co-regent Smenkhkare towards the end of Akhenaten's reign. [Source: Dr Kate Spence, BBC, February 17, 2011 |::|]

Akhenaten was originally named Amenhotep IV. He launched a revolution that saw Egypt's religion become focused around the worship of the Aten, the sun disk. He built a new capital city called Akhetaten (modern-day Amarna) that had temples dedicated to the Aten. According to Minnesota State University, Mankato: “Some scholars have contemplated Nefertiti’s role in the religious reform of Egypt, contemplating if it was Nefertiti who urged her husband toward the religious reform or if he did so under his own volition. Little has been written about Nefertiti’s role with the king, however, from scribe texts, it is certain that she bore Akhenaten 6 daughters and no sons, and shared a near co-rulership with the king. Unfortunately, the lack of male sons left Akhenaten with no male royal heir to the throne. As a result, Akhenaten appointed an heir outside of the bloodline. [Source: Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com +]

Nefertiti is well-known in part because of her famous bust which is described below, Despite the bust's fame, much about Nefertiti remains unknown. "We know far less about Nefertiti and other members of the royal family than is generally realised," Barry Kemp, professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Cambridge, told Live Science. "More or less the only external historical source is the diplomatic correspondence known as the Amarna Letters," and these make no mention of Nefertiti, Kemp said. [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, February 1, 2023]

Books: "Nefertiti: Egypt's Sun Queen" (Penguin Books, 2005) by Joyce Tyldesley, a professor of Egyptology at the University of Manchester; "Nefertiti's Face: The Creation of an Icon" by Joyce Tyldesley (Harvard University, 2018).

Nefertiti's Life and Family

Queen Nefertiti is thought to have been a princess from Mitanni (a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia). She initially encouraged and supported her husband in with his revolutionary religious views but later appeared to have a falling out with him perhaps over the same views. A relief at Aten Temple in Tel el Amarna, shows Akhenaten and wife Nefertiti worshipping Aten. Another relief shows Akhenaten and Nefertiti playing with their daughters beneath the Aten (sun disk). [Source: BBC, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com]

Nefertiti's name translates to "a beautiful woman has come". In her book "Nefertiti: Egypt's Sun Queen", Joyce Tyldesley said the identity of her parents is uncertain, but her father may have been a man named Ay, a prominent court official who would later become pharaoh. Historical records indicate that Nefertiti had six daughters and no sons with Akhenaten. Egyptian pharaohs often had multiple wives and concubines, and Tutankhamun's mother was likely one of them. This means that Tutankhamun is probably Nefertiti the stepson. [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, February 1, 2023]

Jacquelyn Williamson of George Mason University wrote: “ The translation of her name, “The Beautiful One has Come,” inspired a theory that she was of foreign origin, but no evidence supports that suggestion. Instead, if she is indeed related to the official Aye, who himself may have been a son of the official Yuya, she most likely came from the 9th nome of Upper Egypt, near Akhmim. Although it is difficult to speculate on the exact year of their marriage, it may have occurred at the occasion of Akhenaten’s Sed festival celebrations. Nefertiti is represented frequently in Akhenaten’s art, and it appears Akhenaten used her to substitute for many of the female goddesses such as Hathor that his religion rendered anathema. In fact, integral to the legitimization of his new religion. [Source: Jacquelyn Williamson, George Mason University, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2015, escholarship.org ]

According to Minnesota State University, Mankato: “Little is known about the early years of Nefertiti’s life, and scholars have contemplated whether she truly was of royal lineage. Evidence suggests she was wed to Akhenaten as the daughter of a high official during Amenhotep III’s reign, or of Amenhotep himself. Similarly, debate still remains as to whether or not Nefertiti was in fact the actual mother of Akhenaten, and his wife at the same time. The mystery of Nefertiti’s origins remain a large topic of debate. [Source: Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com +]

Akhenaten and Nefertiti

Nefertiti and Akhenaten
Akhenaten was married to Queen Nefertiti, one of the most famous of all ancient Egyptian women. One inscription shows Akhenaten and Nefertiti with their three daughters. All three daughters have misshapen skulls. King Tut may have been the son of Akhenaten and a secondary queen.

Nefertiti was regarded as a great beauty. A beautiful bust of her is the most prized possession of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. If she did indeed look like the bust she has neck like a swan and a dedicate face made up in a style that is not different from the way modern women make up themselves. Her name means “beautiful one to come.” Not all renderings of Nefertiti depict her as a glamorous beauty. In some images she looks haggard and tired, During Nefertiti’s reign ordinary people started wearing wigs. Nefertiti herself favored Nubian style wigs and is thought to have shaved here head so her wigs fit more snugly.

Nefertiti parents are unknown although her father may been a vizier for King Tutankhamun. Akhenaten elevated Nefertiti to divine status. She may have been only 12 when she married Akhenaten. During the 12th year of Akhenaten’s reign Nefertiti disappeared from the historical record. Akhenaten's other wife Kiya was referred to as his "Great Beloved."

Nefertiti was one of the most influential queens. Reliefs show here conducting religious ceremonies with Akhenaten as an equal. She had more power perhaps than any other queen. Many scholars believe that Nefertiti may have ruled Egypt as Akhenaten co-regent and after Akhenaten's death may have ruled outright under the name of Ankhkheprure. A hymn to the god Amen with a prayer for the queen, written in around 1300 B.C., goes: "Prize from the Chief Wife of the King, his beloved...Nefertiti, living, healthy, and youthful forever and ever."

Nefertiti’s mummy was never found. It may have been hidden to keep it from Akhenaten's enemies. In June 2003, archaeologist June Fletcher claimed she found Nefertiti’s badly-mutilated mummy in a side chamber of the Tomb of Amenhotep II in the Valley of the Kings. Evidence that the mummy was Nefertiti includes distinctive double perching of the left ear which only Nefertiti and her daughter are said to have had, a tight fitting brow band (a sign of royalty), locks from a Nubian wig like that worn by Nefertiti and evidence of embalming of the type that was done in Nefertiti’s time. The mutilations were quite severe. Someone hacked her face and dug a sharp instrument into her chest. The damage is consistent with the kind of desecration performed by zealots opposed to Akhenaten’s religious reforms. The revelations were revealed in a Discovery Channel program. Most scholars are not convinced.

Bust of Nefertiti

Nefertiti is well-known to us today because a life-size bust that shows her wearing a crown. It was found by a German team led by Ludwig Borchardt in 1912 during excavations of a workshop belonging to an Egyptian sculptor named Thutmose and is now in the Neues Museum (New Museum) in Berlin. [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, February 1, 2023]

Owen Jarus wrote in Live Science: The bust is mostly intact, but part of the left eye is missing, leading to a debate as to whether the missing piece fell out or was never put in, according to Tyldesley in her book "Nefertiti's Face: The Creation of an Icon". It's been speculated the missing eye is indicative of a health condition, such as a cataract, Tyldesley writes. There is also disagreement about whether this bust was intended to be a sculptor's model used for teaching or intended for display.

In the first known description of the bust of Nefertiti, Ludwig Borchardt wrote in his 1912 excavation diary: “Life-sized painted bust of the queen, 47 cm high. With the flat-cut blue wig, which also has a ribbon wrapped around it halfway up. Colours as if paint was just applied. Work absolutely exceptional. Description is useless, must be seen...

The preservation is astoundingly good. The erect portion of the cobra is broken off, as are two small pieces of the sharp upper edge of the wig on the right and left; on the left side a larger section of the plaster coating has flaked off; both ears are damaged, on the right some fragments have now been reattached. The inlay is missing from the left eye; since however no traces of a binding agent were detected in the eye socket, and the background is smooth and not in any way recessed so as to accommodate an inlay, it is certain that the left eye was never filled with an inlay. On the right shoulder as well a small piece chipped off; additionally, here and there scarcely noticeable scratches on the face, nose, etc. In several places traces of impure moisture, probably from rain water, which flowed contaminated through the already leaky roof and fell on the bust still standing on its shelf...

The muscles of the nape and sides of the neck are so delicately rendered that one imagines one sees them flexing under the delicate skin, which is rendered in a healthy hue.Egyptian sculptors hardly ever attempted to express any emotion in the faces of their artworks [...], but this face is the embodiment of serenity and composure. Viewed from the front, it exhibits complete mirror symmetry, and yet it will be utterly clear to the viewer that he is not looking at some constructed ideal here, but instead at the stylised, though nonetheless thoroughly recognisable image of a specific person with a strongly striking appearance.

Making the Bust of Nefertiti

Nefertiti bust

Nefertiti’s bust was discovered in Amarna buried in the dirt inside the abandoned workshop of the royal sculptor Thutmose. A radiology journal in 2009 published a study showing the results of CT scans on the bust. Surprisingly, there was a second inner statue underneath the one we see today! The original wasn’t quite the idealized beauty we’ve all come to marvel. In fact, there were originally wrinkles around the eyes and frown lines. In addition, there was a bump on the nose. [Source: Chris Centeno, . regenexx. com, July 8, 2015]

Dimitri Laboury of the University of Liège in Belgium wrote: “The world-famous bust of Nefertiti was unearthed” in Amarna “among plaster studies of heads and faces. These busts show the successive stages through which the official image of a royal (and also of a private) individual was established. These plaster pieces present material evidence of casting as well as of modeling, indicating that they resulted from a work made of malleable material—most probably clay—from which a mold was created to make a plaster reproduction. This process and the fact that most of them were reworked or bear signs of paint for reworking or completion show that these steps were induced by the necessity for control, almost certainly performed by—or at least in agreement with—the self-thematized patron who ordered the statue(s). [Source: Dimitri, Laboury, University of Liège, Belgium, UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology 2010, escholarship.org ]

These operations of modeling, casting, and correction were surely executed by Thutmose himself or his closest collaborators, since the plaster studio was installed not in the actual sculpture workshop area, opened to day workers, but next to the chief sculptor’s private house and was only accessible from the latter . While only two stages are attested for private persons, the official effigies of members of the royal family were produced in four phases, with at least three control steps before finishing the final model, sculpted in stone and adorned with plaster completions, subtle paintings, precious inlays, and even gildings. These valuable model-busts could then be copied and dispatched to the various workshops throughout the empire, in order to ensure consistency in the reproduction of the king’s or the queen’s official image.

“Investigating the perfect beauty of Nefertiti’s Berlin bust, Rolf Krauss recreated its original design as seen through the sculptor’s eyes, when the artist prepared his work on the parallelepiped limestone block, by projecting a grid graduated in ancient Egyptian measuring units (1 finger = 1.875 cm) on a 3D recording of the queen’s effigy. He thus showed that every important facial feature is positioned on a line or at the intersection of two lines. This demonstrates how much the so-called “most lifelike of Egyptian art” was artificially constructed. Moreover, Krauss also showed that the upper part of the face of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, from the bottom of the nose to the beginning of the crown on the forehead, is exactly identical in size as well as in shape. So, even if it is tantalizing to imagine some sort of a physiognomic convergence between Akhenaten’s or Nefertiti’s actual face and their apparently very individualized sculpted portraits, this reveals, without any possible doubt, that their official images idealized them.

“Seen from this perspective, and in the political context of the end of Dynasty 18, it is interesting to note that the effigies of Akhenaten’s two direct successors, Neferneferuaten and Tutankhamen, probably two children of the Atenist royal couple, appear to combine the facial features recognized as those of Akhenaten and of Nefertiti . Are these effigies faithful portraits showing a family resemblance or idealized images with ideological meaning? In the case of Tutankhamen, the rather good preservation of his mummy allows to demonstrate that the king’s sculpted portrayals are not exact copies of his actual face but nevertheless provide a physiognomy consistent with it, as well as with his young age. Besides, this youthful face of a teenager was later on reused as a kind of mask for the next three kings of Egypt, Aye, Horemheb, and Ramesses I, who all ascended the throne after a very long civil career.”

Nefertiti’s Bust and Egyptian Beauty

Joyce Tyldesley, professor at the University of Manchester and author of a biography about Nefertiti, told the BBC: Nefertiti’s bust is not typical of ancient Egyptian art: “It’s an unusual statue in that it’s got all the plaster on and it’s colourful – a lot of the artwork we have is more stereotyped and less personal-looking than that.” [Source: Alastair Sooke, BBC, February 4, 2016. Sooke is Art Critic of The Daily Telegraph |::|]

When this bust of Nefertiti was discovered in 1912 but wasn’t shown in a museum until over a decade later when she queen immediately became a sex symbol of the ancient world. Alastair Sooke wrote for the BBC: “The moment when the bust was unveiled in Berlin – in 1923 – was crucial to its reception. ‘Egyptomania’ was in the air, following the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun the previous year, and Nefertiti’s angular, geometric appearance chimed with fashionable taste. “s very modern-looking, very Art Deco,” says Tyldesley. “So everybody seemed to like her. It’s hard to find anybody who didn’t think that Nefertiti was beautiful.” |::|

“During the ’20s, the bust of Nefertiti also benefited from the power of the mass media to turn her into a star. “A hundred years earlier, without newspapers or the cinema, that wouldn’t have happened,” says Tyldesley. “She would have gone into a museum and nobody would have made the fuss they did. I wonder whether the fact that Nefertiti was put on display in Berlin as a major find actually influenced what we saw. After all, beauty, as we know, is in the eye of the beholder.” “|::|

Images of Nefertiti

Nefertiti

One image of Nefertiti dated to the 14th century B.C. shows her performing a ceremony. She is wearing a white robe and a large gold headpiece, holding into the air what appears to burning incense. The rest of the room is filled with people, all standing behind her.

Owen Jarus wrote in Live Science: Egyptian art depicts Nefertiti in ways normally only pharaohs are shown. For instance, she is portrayed smiting (executing) enemies, something only a pharaoh would typically do, Elizabeth Carney, a professor emerita of history at Clemson University in South Carolina, wrote in a paper published in 2001 in the journal Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies. [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, February 1, 2023]

One of the smiting scenes shows Nefertiti on a ship, raising her right hand to kill female prisoners Tyldesley wrote in her "Nefertiti: Egypt's Sun Queen" book, noting that we should not assume that these scenes are merely symbolic. Additionally, the type of helmet-like crown Nefertiti is wearing in the bust was typically reserved for pharaohs or the goddesses Tefnut or Hathor, Friederike Seyfried, director of the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection at the Berlin State Museums, wrote in an article in the book "In the Light of Amarna: 100 Years of the Nefertiti Discovery" (Michael Imhof Verlag, 2013).

Was Nefertiti a Pharaoh?

Kara Clooney, who wrote in a book about ancient Egyptian queens, said “More than any other Egyptian queen, it is Nefertiti who represents the epitome of true, successful female power.” She told National Geographic History: Nefertiti is only just now being discovered by Egyptologists for what she was. That is, a leader of her people. We have thus far only discussed her as a beauty, as evidenced by the bust in Berlin’s Neues Museum. But when she became a political leader she changed her identity. She had herself renamed and was no longer depicted in that feminine way. [Source Simon Worrall, National Geographic History, December 15, 2018]

When I say that Nefertiti was the most successful of our feminine leaders what I mean is that she cleaned up the mess that the men before her had made. She used her feminine emotionality to do so. She wasn’t interested in her own ambition. She didn’t even claim it in a way historians can talk about her as having been in power. She hid all the evidence of herself having taken power. Egyptologists still fiercely debate whether she became co-king at all, and certainly whether she became sole king. If she did, she had to erase her feminine identity of beauty and allurability. That, right there, speaks volumes about what political power is—and what it does to a woman.

It's not clear why Nefertiti is featured so prominently in the art work she appears in. Owen Jarus wrote in Live Science: One possibility is that other queen consorts got similar treatment. 'When considering this question we have to remember that Amarna has yielded more evidence of royal behaviour than other 18th-dynasty archaeological sites," Tyldesley told Live Science. So, we have to ask ourselves is this exceptional, or are we simply seeing the effects of better-preserved evidence?" [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, February 1, 2023]

One idea is that after Akhenaten's death, Nefertiti's power was so great that she was able to rule as a pharaoh in her own right. Egyptian records mention a figure named "Neferneferuaten" who ruled Egypt for a brief time, and it's been speculated that this is actually the throne name for Nefertiti. In ancient Egypt, after becoming a pharaoh, a ruler would sometimes take a new name. Personally, I'm convinced that she ruled as a pharaoh, and that her throne name was Neferneferuaten," Athena Van der Perre, an Egyptologist and postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven in Belgium, told Live Science. "We have evidence for a three year reign of this 'king', so she will have been on the throne for at least three years." However, not all scholars agree with this assessment; Tyldesley, for instance, is doubtful that Nefertiti ruled as a pharaoh.

Mystery of Nefertiti's Death and Destruction of Her Images

Nefertiti
Fifteen years after her appointment to the position of Queen of Memphis, and the Eighteenth Dynasty, Nefertiti mysteriously disappeared. Egyptologists have assumed that this was either due to banishment or her death. However, little evidence suggests that she actually died. Similarly, speculation exists as to whether she was the obscure pharaoh Nefernefuaten. [Source: Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com +]

Owen Jarus wrote in Live Science: Ultimately, the fate of Nefertiti is unclear. Scholars are not certain exactly when she died, and her mummy has not been found. A team led by Zahi Hawass, Egypt's former antiquities minister, is conducting DNA tests in an effort to identify Nefertiti. Hawass told Live Science that one of the mummies in KV 21, a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, could be Nefertiti. This tomb was found in 1817 and has two female mummies, according to the Theban Mapping Project. [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, February 1, 2023]

Regardless of where, when and how Nefertiti died, ancient Egyptians did not take kindly to her in the decades following her death. Tutankhamun undid Akhenaten's religious reform; Amarna became abandoned, and images of Akhenaten and Nefertiti were destroyed. Sculptures of Nefertiti have been found intentionally smashed to pieces or with their heads removed, Aidan Dodson, an Egyptology professor at the University of Bristol in the U.K, wrote in his book "Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt: Her Life and Afterlife" (The American University in Cairo Press, 2020). "Many were smashed in antiquity sometimes to smithereens, at best they were decapitated."

Search for Nefertiti's Tomb

The whereabouts of Queen Nefertiti’s remains remain unknown. Archaeologists say she was probably buried in one of Amarna's tombs. Some have speculated that if Nefertiti's body survived the plunder, it is possible she could have been re-buried in the Valley of the Kings, and it is also possible her remains could in one of several mummies found in the valley whose identities have yet not been confirmed. [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, May 12, 2016]

In 2015, Nicholas Reeves, an independent Egyptologist, published a paper in the periodical Amarna Royal Tombs Project suggesting that Nefertiti was buried in Tutankhamun's tomb in a chamber that is now hidden behind an invaluable mural. However, ground-penetrating-radar scans of the area around the tomb revealed that such a chamber “just doesn't exist." [Source: Owen Jarus, Live Science, February 1, 2023]

In 2013, Archaeology magazine reported: In the 1880s, residents living near the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna discovered a large multichambered rock-cut tomb. It was one of many such tombs at Amarna, but its impressive size distinguished it from the others. Unfortunately, the tomb, called Amarna 26, has been badly damaged by looters, weather, and time, and many of the most significant artifacts were removed at some point, either in antiquity or more recently. Relatively little of the tomb’s fragile decoration is intact. Nevertheless, enough inscribed artifacts do survive — including more than 200 shabti figurines, an alabaster chest, and two large granite sarcophagi — that archaeologists are reasonably certain the tomb, also called the Royal Tomb, belonged to the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten and his daughter Meketaten. [Source: Archaeology magazine, August/September 2013]

“But the Royal Tomb also contains a third, unfinished chamber whose royal resident is unknown.Could it perhaps be the tomb of Akhenaten’s wife, Nefertiti? Egyptologist Marc Gabolde of Paul Valéry University, who has been searching for Nefertiti’s tomb, thinks so. “I now believe that Nefertiti died a few months before Akhenaten and was buried at Amarna, despite the fact that her suite in the Royal Tomb was unfinished.” But at least one other scholar is less certain. “I do not think it is likely that she was buried in Amarna,” says archaeologist Barry Kemp of the University of Cambridge, director of the Amarna Project. “Or, at least, nothing found in the tomb suggests that it had housed burial equipment for her,” Kemp adds. “She could have been buried at Thebes, or on the now utterly robbed necropolis at Gurob; or she could have been taken back to her home city of Akhmim and buried in the ancestral cemetery there. We may never know.”

A team of Italian archeologists headed by Franco Porcelli, the director of the Polytechnic University of Turin project, is documenting the Valley of the Kings. They have entered the tomb of Tutankhamun and scanned it for secret chambers. Their ultimate goal is to find the final resting place of Nefertiti. Porcelli said before the scan: “It will be a rigorous scientific work and will last several days, if not weeks… Who knows what we might find as we scan the ground”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum, The Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Text Sources: UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, escholarship.org ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Egypt sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Tour Egypt, Minnesota State University, Mankato, ethanholman.com; Mark Millmore, discoveringegypt.com discoveringegypt.com; Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated July 2024