Nefertiti
(ca. 1370 BC - ca. 1330 BC)
painted limestone bust , now in Berlin's Egyptian Museum
was the Great Royal Wife (chief consort) of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. They had six known daughters.
Her name roughly translates to "the beautiful one is come".
Nefertiti remains the one of the most well known Queen of Egypt. Though Akhenaten had several wives, Queen Nefertiti was his chief wife.
Nefertiti's origins are confusing. It has been suggested that Nefertiti was Akhenaten's cousin. Her wet nurse was the wife of the vizier Ay, . Ay sometimes called himself "the God's father," suggesting that he might have been Akhenaten's father-in-law. However Ay never specifically refers to himself as the father of Nefertiti, although there are references that Nefertiti's sister, Mutnojme, is featured prominently in the decorations of the tomb of Ay. We may never know the truth of this bloodline.
once Akhenaten decided to change the religion she moved with him to the new capital .
During Akhenaten's reign (and perhaps after), Nefertiti enjoyed unprecedented power. By the twelfth year of his reign, there is evidence that she may have been elevated to the status of co-regent: equal in status to the pharaoh. It is possible that Nefertiti is to be identified as the ruler named Neferneferuaten.
About Year 14 of Akhenaten's reign, Nefertiti vanishes from the historical record. There is no word of her after that date.
Theories include sudden death by a plague that was sweeping through the city or another natural death. This theory is based on the discovery of several shabti fragments inscribed for Nefertiti (now located in the Louvre and Brooklyn Museums).
.
Some theories state that Nefertiti was still alive after Akhenaten death and held influence on the younger royals. If this is the case, that influence and presumably Nefertiti's own life would have ended by year 3 of Tutankhaten's reign (1331 BC). In that year, Tutankhaten changed his name to Tutankhamun. This was evidence of his return to the official worship of Amun, and his abandonment of Amarna to return the capital to Thebes.
As Nefertiti's tomb was never completed and no mummy was ever found, the location of Nefertiti's body has long been a subject of curiosity and speculation.
On June 9, 2003, archaeologist Joann Fletcher, a specialist in ancient hair, from the University of York in England, announced that Nefertiti's mummy may have been one found in the famous cache of mummies in tomb KV35 in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Ms. Fletcher led an expedition that examined what is believed to have been Nefertiti's mummy.
The mummy that was examined by the team was discovered damaged in a way that suggested the body had been desecrated either at the time of death or shortly after. Mummification techniques, such as the use of embalming fluid and the presence of an intact brain suggest an eighteenth dynasty royal mummy. Among the most suggestive features are the age of the body, the presence of embedded nefer beads, the fact that the arm had been buried in the position reserved for pharaohs and had been snapped off by vandals and replaced with another arm in a normal position, and a wig of a rare style worn by Nefertiti. On June 12, 2003, Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities, dismissed the claim, citing insufficient evidence.
