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For
more than thirty centuries, Akhenaten and
Nefertiti remained without any trace in
history, completely forgotten even in
legend. Chisels removed their names off
monuments, and even defaced their faces
from the statues; their city was razed to
the ground, its very bricks stolen and
carried off. But, with the increasing
successes in deciphering of hieroglyphics,
a very faint picture of a king (either a
saint or a criminal) and a queen (too
beautiful to describe) began to appear.
The chisels were not able to disfigure
everything. Items in the remote areas had
survived the destructive fury, and the
clay-tablet letters written to foreign
capitals had also escaped the censor's
attention. Archaeologists began to read
these dispersed messages and fill in the
empty spaces on the monuments in
Thebes
and
Karnak
.
The picture that emerged in the early days
of the twentieth century was that of a
pharaoh, who was too brave, or crazy
enough to throw away one of the most
enduring pillars of the establishments.
Defying the priests of Amun, he started a
new ethic-based monotheistic religion, and
erected a beautiful city 300 miles north
of
Thebes
.
However, within a few years of his death,
his successors reacted in a swift and
complete manner to his rebellion, leaving
nothing of his religion or his city. Even
his name and that of his queen were
obliterated from the memory of men.
At present, Akhenaten has come to be
considered as one of the greatest kings of
Egypt
.
But was his queen as beautiful as the
epithets proclaimed? Did she share his
vision?
The answer to the first part came with the
discovery of the bust of Nefertiti,
unearthed near the modern city of
Tell
el-Amarna, by a team of archaeologists
working for the German Orient Society
under Professor Ludwig Borchardt of
Berlin
.
They were allowed by the Egyptian
Government to excavate the site of
Akhenaten's short-lived capital, Akhetaten.
The sand-stone figurine stood twenty
inches tall, and was in near perfect
condition. The only visible damage was the
chipped ear lobes, and the in-lay of the
retina of the left eye was missing.
As to the beauty of Nefertiti: it is
timeless. Her face has become the best
known in history, and her bust, which the
German team smuggled out of
Egypt
to
Berlin
,
disguised as broken pieces of pottery, is
the most copied and admired in the world.
The sand and dirt of room 19 where the
bust was uncovered (more than 30 cubic
feet) was sifted again and again. All the
earpieces were found but the eye in-lay
was never recovered. Only later, a closer
examination revealed that it was never
inserted. The graceful curve of the long
neck, the arched eyebrow, and the hint of
a smile on the queen's sensual full lips
is a far cry from the symmetrical frozen
immobility of the traditional Egyptian
statuary. It
has made her ancient Egypt's most
recognizable queen and a symbol of her
country's history.
Nefertiti's prominent role in Egyptian
royal rule and religious worship reflects
her influence in the public sphere. During
the early years of her royal reign,
Nefertiti, as part of her religious
conversion, changed her name. Nefertiti,
which means "The-beautiful-one -is
come" became
Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti or "The-Aten-is
-radiant-of-radiance [because]
the-beautiful-one-is come". Following
his wife's lead, Amenhotep changed his
name in the fifth year of his reign to
Akhenaten. Nefertiti's central role in the
adoption of this new religion is witnessed
in the artistic representations, which
adorn temple walls.
Not much is known about where she came
from or who she was, but there has been
much speculation about this. Egyptologists
differ on whether Nefertiti was Egyptian
or a princess from somewhere else. Some of
them believe that she was the daughter of
Aye and Tiye, while others think that she
is the daughter of Amenhotep III and was
one of his wives.
She appeared with Akhenaten during his
fourth year at el-'Amarna. They raised six
daughters but no sons. One of their
daughters, Meket-Aten, died. Their
mourning was shown on wall paintings.
After the death of their daughter,
Nefertiti disappeared from the court.
Egyptologists have assumed that this was
either due to banishment or her death.
However, little evidence suggests that she
actually died. Some evidence shows that
she stayed in 'Amarna, but lived in a
villa called Hataten. Her daughter took
over her place as Akhenaten's Queen. Her
body has never been found.
A wife, loved by
her husband Akhenaten, a mother adored by
her family, a monotheist blessed by the
sun god, and a queen worshiped by her
people, Nefertiti suddenly and completely
vanished from the record. Some of the
scholarly theories for Nefertiti's
disappearance claim she grew too powerful,
ruled Egypt in her own right, or committed
a heinous crime and was banished. But,
insufficient evidence exists to support
these theories.
Was she banished by her husband or raised
to rule as his equal? Did she reign, under
another name, in her own right? Could she
have been the power behind the young
Tutankhamen, her son-in-law?
King Tutankhamun remains the most famous
of all the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, but
in fact he was a short lived and fairly
insignificant ruler during a transitional
period in history. However, the discovery
of his tomb and the amazing contents it
helds, ultimately ensured this boy king of
the immortality he sought.
Akhenaten,
King of Egypt
In his book Akhenaten,
King of Egypt, the author
Cyril Aldred quotes an eulogy of
Nefertiti's found on the boundary stelae
of Akhetaten. The inscription reads:
And the Heiress, Great in the
Palace, Fair of Face, Adorned with the
Double Plumes, Mistress of Happiness,
Endowed with Favours, at hearing whose
voice the King rejoices, the Chief Wife of
the King, his beloved, the Lady of the Two
Lands, Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti, May she
live for Ever and Always.
A limestone relief found in the Royal Tomb
at Amarna depicts Akhenaten, Nefertiti,
and two of their daughters making an
offering to the sun-disk Aten. Akhenaten
and Nefertiti carry flowers to be laid on
the table beneath the
"life-giving" rays of the Aten.
The figures are carved in the grotesque
style, a characteristic of the early half
of the Amarna period. Nefertiti, sporting
the double plume headdress mentioned in
the stela dedication, is the petite figure
placed behind her larger scale husband.
The compostion mirrors early artistic
representations of the royal couple. To
emphasize the strength and power of the
pharaoh, Egyptian iconographical tradition
required the female figure to be smaller
in scale than the male.
The scale of the aforementioned relief
stela is quite similar to this painted
limestone pair-statue.
The
figure of Nefertiti, although she is
Akhenaten's Royal Wife, is carved at a
smaller scale than her illustrious
husband. She is enrobed in a traditional
long white garb. Akenaten wears a short
white loin cloth and is adorned with a
neck decoration. In contrast, to
Akhenaten's red skinned robust body,
Nefertiti's figure is rendered in white
tones. Characteristic of the Amarna style,
the figures are fashioned with
swelled-stomachs. This new style portrayed
the human body with unflattering realism.
It is unknown whether the new artistic
aesthetic did indeed reflect reality.
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