Queen Nefertiti

Queen Nefertiti is famous for her beauty and attractiveness, her name means “Here comes the beautiful.” When a girl is described as Nefertiti, this means that her beauty is “pharaonic” and distinctive. But who is Queen Nefertiti?

Nefertiti lived in the 14th century B.C. and was part of the 18th dynasty in Ancient Egypt. She ruled with her husband Pharaoh Amenhotep IV from 1353 to 1336 BC, and was one of the most powerful and influential queens in ancient Egypt, especially when she began to spread the new concept of worshipping only one God who embodied her husband, as the sun god, and called it “Aton”, and together they converted from polytheism to monotheism, the worship of only one God.

Nefertiti changed her name to “Nefernfraton Nefertiti”, meaning “Aton shines because the beautiful has come” to suit their new faith.

Nefertiti supported her husband, Amnhotep who changed his name later to Akhenaten, and always advised him, as well as photographed their journey and their close relationship together on the walls of the Temples of Aton and tombs of Nobles in Tal Amarna, where they lived with the royal family in the city built by Akhenaten.

Nefertiti gave birth to six daughters and one son, and her daughter Ankh Amun eventually married her brother Tutankhamun, the future ruler of Egypt, as the marriage of brothers and sisters was considered acceptable and normal at this time.

Despite the power and influence of Nefertiti in the royal court, she disappeared after her daughter -Mechet Aton- died. Nefertiti was deeply grieved, and her daughter, Merit Aten, took her place in the courtroom and won the title of the Great Royal Wife.

It is said that she did not bear the grief of the loss of her daughter and died immediately after that with no trace. After 12 years of disappearance, her statues were disfigured and her name was erased from history, as it happened with Akhenaten after his death.

The scholars speculate that some of the ruling families that followed Akhenaten did so in an attempt to erase any trace of them, because Akhenaten and Nefertiti, at the end of their lives believed, that there is a stronger god that rules the world. The following rulers wanted to erase any trace of this belief, in order to force people to worship them.

The tomb of Nefertiti has not yet been found, and her mummy has not been discovered. Scientists have often excavated the grave of Akhenaten, who is said to have been buried with her but they did not find her body. It is likely that there is a secret door in the cemetery leading to Nefertiti’s room. The tomb is divided into two rooms, in one of them Akhenaten was buried, and the other one was the burial place of Nefertiti.

The statue of Nefertiti, one of the most famous statues, was found in Tel el-Amarna at the sculptor’s workshop “Tuthmosis” in 1912, but a German archelogist called Ludwig Burchardt stole the statue to Germany and sent it to the Berlin Museum. There is also another statue of Queen Nefertiti, made of red quartzite, which is very beautiful, and is now preserved in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt.