Who Was the Mysterious Queen Nefertiti?
Posted: Thursday, July 16, 2009
by Rob Mabry
Your Museum Store
In 1924, a bust of a beautiful woman was put on display at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. The bust depicts a woman with a long, slender neck and possessed of great beauty. In fact her name, Nefertiti, means the beautiful one has come.
Despite her vast beauty and the rise of her legend in modern times, details of Nefertitis life are scarce and we're it not for the discovery of this exquisite bust, she may have faded from ancient history all together.
What we do know of this elegant Egyptian queen comes mostly from the Aten Temple and an ongoing excavation at Amarna by the British Egypt Exploration Society. Some Egyptologists theorize that her names meaning, the beautiful one has come is evidence that she entered Egypt from a foreign land. Others believe she may have descended from royal blood. There is also a contingent of scholars that believe she was daughter to Ay, a powerful political figure, who became Pharaoh after the death of King Tut. A death in which they suspect he may have played a hand.
While details of her life before marriage are scant, her rise to power along with her husband, the Pharaoh Akhenaten, provides some insight into the mysterious queen. Their elevation of Aten, the sun disc god, as the true god proved controversial and many believe this monotheistic direction was plotted by Queen Nefertiti herself. This practice did not sit we'll with the Egyptian priesthood and surely garnered the ruling couple an army of powerful enemies.
Questions still shroud the life and death of this controversial and enigmatic queen of the Nile. Her name and history we're erased from historical records and statues and busts that bore her likeness destroyed as Egypt returned to polytheism. Only traces of the intriguing story of her past remain. The cause of her death too remains a mystery. With so many powerful enemies in the priesthood, she may we'll have succumbed to the perils of her own ambition.
With so little historical evidence, we are left mostly with speculation and conjecture that draw an incomplete picture of an intriguing historical figure. Anyone who has the good fortune to visit the Egyptian Museum in Berlin and see the bust of this exquisite Egyptian queen will wonder at her beauty and wonder even more about her life as a queen of the Nile.
Not likely to make it to the Egyptian Museum in Berlin any time soon? Why not bring home the enticing beauty of the Nefertiti bust? Check out the gallery quality replica of the Nefertiti bust available at Your Museum Store.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Good information on a little known topic, Rob. What is known of that time period is interesting to me.
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