Queen Nefertiti
Facts About Queen Nefertiti
Nefertiti! This name reminds you of the famous painted bust, now on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin, which was found in 1912 in Tell el-Amarna in Egypt. This sculpture, strangely well preserved, of a little less than fifty centimeters high, represents a woman with mythical beauty.
Nefertiti, remains a mystery for the Egyptologists, with a burial unfound. She was certainly a princess, who married at the age of 12 the pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, named Amenophis IV-Akhenaton. She became queen of Egypt when he inherited the throne at age 15, around 1350 BC. Nefertiti was both queen and goddess, also married to the solar god Aton.
The royal couple used to make decisions, suggested by the god. At the beginning of their reign, both lived in Thebes, the Egyptian capital. Nefertiti would have encouraged her husband to build a new capital in honor of the god Aton.
Nefertiti’s identity remains a mystery, as the reign of Amenhotep IV and Nefertiti was deliberately erased from history by subsequent generations of worshipers of the god Amon. She is depicted as a powerful and happy wife with her 6 daughters, so it is concluded that she could not give any heirs. Thus, she was dismissed by the pharaoh favoring his second wife, Kaya. The latter would have given him the next heir, Tutankhanum, which remains famous to this day.
