Repeatedly, Akhenaten proclaims her beauty, and declares for her his undying love. On one of the boundary stelae we read: '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 Two Lands – Nefertiti. May she live for ever and always.'
From the religious perspective, Nefertiti shares her husband's celestial role. As Akhenaten has usurped Osiris as lord of the dead, Nefertiti has taken over from the funerary goddesses as guardian of the dead. On a sarcophagus from the royal tomb at Amarna, four images of Nefertiti decorate the corners, instead of the four tutelary goddesses, Isis, Nephthys, Selkis and Neith, that usually protect the deceased. Moreover, an examination of the hieroglyphics in Nefertiti's title reveals that she may have held some special religious status all her own.
Hieroglyphics can be written to be read either from the left or right, the direction indicated by the way the characters face. If the human and animal figures, for instance, face the left, then the script is read from the left, and vice versa. In Nefertiti's title, however, we find an unusual exception. In her name, Neferneferuaten, a reed symbol at the top of her cartouche, which should uniformly point to the earlier text, is always made to face her image, even when it needs to be reversed. No one else, not even the king, enjoys such a distinction.
Akhenaten, though, is always seen to be in command. In processions Nefertiti is depicted behind him and in smaller scale, the conventional way of denoting inferior status. She may have enjoyed considerable influence, but in the end the king's word is final. In the boundary stelae proclamations concerning the location of the new city, we gather that Nefertiti is not exactly keen to set up home in the middle of nowhere. Akhenaten, however, makes it very clear that no one – not even the queen – will persuade him to build it anywhere else: only he speaks for the god.
Nefertiti's background is as enigmatic as her smile. Although we have more pictures of her in regal, religious and family life than any other queen of ancient Egypt, we have absolutely no details of her youth, birth or childhood. Her earliest representation is in the tomb of the vizier Ramose at Thebes, where she is already depicted as queen. It has been suggested that she was the daughter of the chief minister Ay, because he held the title 'Father of the God'. Queen Tiye's father, Amonhotep III's vizier Yuya, is sometimes described on commemorative scarabs as 'Father of the God', suggesting that it may have been a title meaning 'father-in-law' to the king. However, the term usually refers to a priestly office and, as chief minister, it is more likely that it alluded in some way to Ay's religious standing. In an illustration on the north wall of Tutankhamun's burial chamber Ay is actually shown acting as the Sem priest officiating at the last rites of the king. (Indeed, another of Akhenaten's ministers, Aper-el, also bore the title 'Father of the God' [see Chapter Eleven].) Moreover, Yuya's wife, Tuya, was described as 'Royal Mother of the King's Chief Wife', whereas the Ay's wife, Tey, is simply described as 'Governess to the King's Chief Wife'.
Nefertiti's name, 'A Beautiful Woman Comes', does not contain the noble designations normally found in the birth names of high-ranking Egyptians, such as god-names and allusions to virtues or social standing. Indeed, it seems more like a name she had acquired once she had grown up. This unconventional designation, coupled with the complete absence of family history, suggests that Nefertiti may not have been a native Egyptian. Perhaps she was a foreign princess, sent to Egypt as a child-bride to cement an alliance between Egypt and her country. Just such an arrangement seems to have been made for Akhenaten's grandfather, Tuthmosis IV, who was married to princess Mutemwiya, the daughter of the Mitannian king Artatama. Her foreign extraction did not prevent Mutemwiya from becoming the 'Chief Wife' and the mother of the next pharaoh, Amonhotep III and grandmother of Akhenaten himself.
An important indication that Nefertiti's was indeed of foreign extraction is the bust in the Berlin Museum. The fairskinned woman it depicts is clearly not of North African origin, but markedly European. In fact, the narrow nose which follows the straight, so-called Grecian line from her brow, is a typical Aegean feature. As this was centuries before the existence of classical Greece, it may well be that she was a princess from the Minoan empire based on the Aegean island of Crete.
In the early 1900s excavations at Crete, led by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans, unearthed the ruins of the ancient Minoan capital at Knossos. Dating from around 2000 BC, the heart of this remarkable city was a vast complex of royal buildings and courtyards, estimated to have housed around 40,000 people. Although not built to the enormous scale of contemporary Egyptian architecture, the city was in many ways more sophisticated. Staircases, for instance, doubled as an ingenious form of air conditioning, complex stone conduits carried running water beneath the floors, and some palace chambers even had an en-suite bathroom.
It soon became evident that the Minoans were a race of master shipbuilders who had dominated the Aegean for centuries, and through trade, rather than conquest, had become one of the wealthiest powers in the Mediterranean. From at least the Hyksos period they were in close commercial contact with Egypt. A circular alabaster jar, found at the palace at Knossos, was inscribed with the cartouche of the third Hyksos king, Khyan, around 1660 BC, and at the Hyksos capital Avaris (modern Tell-el-Daba), in the north-eastern Delta, archaeologists have unearthed numerous fragments of Minoan-style wall paintings. Minoan pottery, with its distinctive geometric patterns and naturalistic wildlife, turns up frequently in Egypt over the next three centuries, and by the eighteenth dynasty the two countries had strong diplomatic ties. In the tomb of Hatshepsut's chief minister Senenmut, around 1480 BC, we see scenes of foreign envoys, each in their national costume. Some are called Keftiu and from the goods they bear it is clear that they are Minoans. During the next fifty years or so they appear regularly as emissaries to the Egyptian court, and by the reign of Akhenaten's father, Amonhotep III, relations between the two empires have reached an all-time high. By this time the Minoans have adopted Egyptian building techniques for their new temples on Crete, while Amonhotep's new place of Malkata at Thebes is lavishly decorated with Minoan frescoes.
A special alliance between the Egyptian and the Minoan empires during Akhenaten's father's reign is very probable. By then the Egyptians had control of an empire which dominated the mainland of the eastern Mediterranean, right up to what is now northern Syria. Here, they came into contact with two neighbouring empires, the Mitanni in northern Syria and part of Iraq, and the more powerful Hittites in what is now Turkey. Treaties had been made with one side or other over the previous century, as Egypt contrived to retain its valuable province in Lebanon, from where came the hard cedar wood, essential to the Egyptian war machine. From the marriage of Amonhotep's predecessor to the Mitannian princess, it seems that a treaty of some kind already existed with the Mitanni, but the much larger Hittite empire still posed a threat. Egypt was without doubt the superior military power on land, but at sea the advantage lay with the Hittites whose major ports lay closer to Lebanon. From their seizure of the eastern seaboard around 1450 BC, the Egyptians had been relying on the swifter, more efficient Minoan ships to carry their timber supplies across the Mediterranean, and with the growing threat of the Hittites during Amonhotep's reign, a more binding pact with the Minoans would have been highly advantageous for both nations. As such, it would have been expedient to seal the treaty with the marriage of a member of the Egyptian royal family to the Minoan successor, and a Minoan princess to the Egyptian successor, Akhenaten.
Nefertiti certainly behaves like a Minoan princess. From frescoes and statues at Knossos it is clear that in cultic activities women played a far more important role than men. Priestesses, rather than priests, officiated at ceremonial events, and some scholars even believe that the throne itself was occupied by a priestess. Unlike in any other contemporary civilization, women completely dominated religious life. In Egypt
, however, women, no matter how exalted, always played a subsidiary role in religion. They did not worship at the temple altar or make offerings to the principal god. Rather, they accompanied the proceedings by ringing a sistrum, a hand-held musical rattle. The moment Nefertiti appears on the scene, she immediately breaks these ancient taboos. In one of her first representations, on the pillars of the Temple of the Aten, built at Karnak early in Akhenaten's reign, Nefertiti is shown at the altar with her hands raised in worship, making an offering to Maat, the goddess of truth. Nefertiti is not merely assuming the religious role of a man, but by making an offering to Maat she is appropriating what had always been the prerogative of the king himself.
The clearest indicator to suggest that Nefertiti was of Minoan origin is the one concession Akhenaten seems to have made to the old gods – the continued veneration of the sacred bull. In the initial proclamations at Amarna, even after Akhenaten has abandoned all the traditional deities and everything associated with them, he makes specific instructions for the Mnevis bull, an animal sacred to Re, to be bought to the new city and buried in a special tomb in the eastern mountains. The Mnevis Bull, or Nemur, was a living animal worshipped at the temple of Heliopolis which, when dead, was buried with great ceremony and replaced by a new one located in the wild according to prescribed portents. Not only does Akhenaten continue to revere the sacred beast, but he even associates himself with the bull. One of the epithets used by the pharaohs of the New Kingdom was 'Mighty Bull of Horus', one which Akhenaten continues to employ: in the initial proclamations he actually refers to himself as the 'strong bull beloved of the Aten'. Even when he has abandoned wearing many of the customary pharaonic adornments, he continues to wear the bull's tail appendage, while Nefertiti is often seen wearing the stylized bull horns on her headdress. Indeed this continues even after Akhenaten has outlawed the use of the Horus falcon-glyph in the full title of the Aten (see below).
It has always been a mystery why Akhenaten should have made such an uncharacteristic concession. However, if Nefertiti was a Minoan princess, her influence may well be behind it. Wherever it is found, Minoan art is dominated by the image of the bull. Its representations occur everywhere at the palace of Knossos, and there are numerous illustrations of young men jumping over the animal's back in an important religious rite. As the culture's main totem, the bull almost certainly represented the chief Minoan god. Indeed, many scholars believe that the bull-cult continued on Crete well after the collapse of Minoan civilization. It may even have been responsible for the legend of the Minotaur, which in later Greek mythology was a bull-headed man who inhabited the Labyrinth at Knossos.
Not only might the bull be explained by Minoan influence via Nefertiti, but also the flowing, naturalistic style of Amarnan art. The thrust of Minoan art, and also to some degree its subject matter, is strikingly similar to the revolutionary art at Amarna. In the luxuriant wall paintings at Knossos we see scenes of serenity and naturalistic motifs of flowers and animals, so like those favoured by Akhenaten.
Whatever her nationality, Nefertiti had enormous influence at Amarna, and once she had gone everything seems to fall apart. Some scholars have dated her death to as early as the year 11 of Akhenaten's reign, based on the cessation of wine deliveries to her estate at that time. However, she appears in scenes of a ceremony specifically dated as the year 12 in tombs of the high steward Huya and the harem overseer Meryre. In fact, she is still alive in two other scenes which must post-date this ceremony by a couple of years. All six daughters are pictured at the ceremony, and in funeral scenes from two of their tombs, Nefertiti is shown mourning their deaths. Both of these funerals can be dated after the year 14. As the Queen Mother, Tiye, is not present in the royal entourage, she must be presumed dead, and as she is recorded receiving wine in the year 14 these funerals must have occurred after that time. Nefertiti not receiving wine deliveries does not prove she is dead, but Tiye receiving such deliveries certainly suggests that she is alive. Accordingly, Nefertiti must have been alive after Tiye's death in the year 14. Nefertiti, however, appears in no scenes that can be dated after the year 14, so must, it seems, have died about that time.
Upon her death the once vigorous Akhenaten seems to have lost all interest in expounding his precious religion and even relinquished the reins of power: artists increasingly abandon the new style of art, seemingly without reprisals, and Smenkhkare is appointed co-regent with full pharaonic power. There seems to have been no palace revolt or military coup, simply a case of chronic apathy on the part of the pharaoh. It is abundantly clear from Amarnan art that Akhenaten was an extraordinarily emotional man, who dearly loved his family and doted over his queen. The loss of his mother, two daughters and his beloved wife within a year or so must have been just too much for such a man to bear.
Arthur Weigall (left), Theodore Davis (center) and Edward Ayrton (right) in 1907, the year they opened Tomb 55. Their strange behavior during the excavation of the tomb has never been satisfactorily explained. (Birmingham City Library.)
Tomb 55 - perhaps the most mysterious Egyptian tomb ever discovered – seems to have been constructed to keep someone or something trapped inside. (From Weigall’s The Glory of the Pharaohs.)
The Tomb 55 entrance corridor at the time the tomb was opened, with the gilded shrine panels resting on top of the limestone rubble that filled the passage. (From Davis’s The Tomb of Queen Tiyi.)
The Tomb 55 shrine panel which depicted Queen Tiyi and her son Akhenaten. Akhenaten’s figure had been erased from the panel before the tomb was sealed. (From Davis’s The Tomb of Queen Tiyi.)
The Tomb 55 burial chamber as it was first discovered. The shrine panels are stacked against the wall to the left of the picture and the niche containing the Canopic jars is set in the rear wall, below which lies the coffin. (From Davis’s The Tomb of Queen Tiyi.)
The mysterious coffin lying in situ in Tomb 55. All evidence of the mummy’s identity had been deliberately erased. (From Davis’s The Tomb of Queen Tiyi.)
Above: The face mask on the Tomb 55 coffin had been ripped away leaving only one eye. (Cairo Museum.)
Right: The restored Tomb 55 coffin now on display in the Cairo Museum. The cartouche containing the occupant’s name had been cut from its hieroglyphic texts. (Cairo Museum.)
Above: Although the Tomb 55 mummy was male, the stoppers of the accompanying Canopic jars depicted a woman. (Metropolitan Museum, New York.)
Right: One of the Canopic jars from Tomb 55 which contain the removed internal organs of the mummy. Inscribed panels on the jars revealed that they had been made for Akhenaten’s secondary Queen Kiya, before being altered to accommodate the remains of Akhenaten himself. (Metropolitan Museum, New York.)
Above: The plaster-cast head of Akhenaten found during the Amarna excavations in 1911 probably depicts Akhenaten’s true features. (Berlin Museum.)
Right: A typical profile of Akhenaten as he is depicted in the Amarna reliefs, with malformations to the skull, face and neck. The exaggerated features have long been a mystery to Egyptologists. (Cleveland Museum of Art.)
Above: The Nefertiti bust found at the Great Palace at Amarna in 1911. The fair-skinned woman it depicts is clearly not of North African origin, but markedly European. (Berlin Museum.)
Right: Like her husband, Nefertiti is often shown in the Amarna reliefs with the same exaggerated facial features. (Petrie Museum.)
Courtiers also emulated the ‘royal deformities’ in their representations. In this pair of statuettes the chief sculptor Bek and his wife are both depicted with the bodily peculiarities typical of Akhenaten reliefs. (Berlin Museum.)
In most Amarna depictions the king’s physique is distinctly feminine, with heavy breasts, swelling hips and ample thighs. However, Akhenaten’s profile is not only effeminate, it is also deformed. The legs, for instance, are fatty around the thighs but spindly below the knee. (Cairo Museum.)
Akhenaten’s daughters are often depicted with enlarged craniums and serpentine necks, such
as in this bust thought to be of the Princess Meritaten. (Berlin Museum.)
With Nefertiti gone, and the king's apparent withdrawal, the drama now shifts increasingly to Akhenaten's eldest daughter and ultimately to what appears to have been a bitter power struggle. The six princesses were, in descending order of age, Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten-ta-sherit, Neferneferure, and Sotepenre. Two of them, we know, had already died. A chamber in the royal tomb shows a deathbed scene of a princess lying on a couch. She is mourned by her weeping parents and two distraught attendants, while standing outside the chamber is a nursemaid holding a baby. The inference appears to be that this princess died in childbirth. A companion scene on the opposite wall identifies the deceased as the princess Mekataten, Nefertiti's second eldest daughter. As. there are only four princesses in the funerary procession it appears that one of Mekataten's sisters has also died by this time.
This princess was evidently interred in a separate chamber in the royal tomb, but who she was is unclear. Two long scenes in the chamber show the king and queen accompanied by five daughters making offerings in a temple court. Other scenes show the king grieving for the princess who lies prostrate on a bier. A similar scene above shows the king and queen mourning at her death-bed. Once more, a nursemaid is seen outside the room holding a baby, suggesting that this princess also died in childbirth. As there are five living daughters illustrated here, then it is presumably not a further representation of Mekataten's funeral, at which only four daughters were present. The name of the deceased has been excised from the walls, but it would seem to have been the princess Neferneferure, as in 1984 a fragment of a funerary vessel bearing her name was discovered among rubble in the area by the Egyptian archaeologist Dr Aly el Kouly.
Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt: The Secret History Hidden in the Valley of the Kings Page 8