When we explore our heritage, we can observe that only a few personalities have left their imprint in today’s day and age!
Like Queen Cleopatra, only a few instances in human civilization have the largest and most powerful figure been feminine.
Such a lady, whose name simply translates “a stunning woman has arrived”! In her own captivating and persuasive manner, Queen Nefertiti was both beautiful and mysterious.
With good cause, the bust of Queen Nefertiti is one of the most recognizable and reproduced works of ancient Egyptian pieces of art.
It is said that Egyptian deities were once jealous of her beauty! It was a rumor but as you know rumor can be true sometimes!
She and her husband, Pharaoh Akhenaten, reorganized Egypt’s religious and political orientation throughout a time of immense intellectual change in Egyptian Civilization.
She also wielded exceptional power in Egyptian courts as a female.
In Egypt, though, a great Queen Nefertiti headed the kingdoms in the 13th century, and it is in her honor that we explore this topic today.
Origin of Queen Nefertiti
Although little is available about Queen Nefertiti’s backdrops, she was considered to have been born approximately around 1300 B.C. and nurtured in the village of Akhmim, where she also was the child of an official.
When King Tutankhamun passed in 1323 B.C., Ay (The official) was his senior confidant and eventually was crowned as pharaoh.
Other scholars, on the other hand, thought that Queen Nefertiti was a queen from the Mittani Dynasty which was situated somewhere in Syria.
Egyptians were known to prefer one deity over another, and Queen Nefertiti was thought to prefer the Egyptian sun god Aten.
Queen Nefertiti’s Marriage
Queen Nefertiti married Amenhotep IV when she was just approximately 15 years old, despite her many conceivable historical origins.
Amenhotep III, the father of Amenhotep IV, was the 18th Family dynasty, ninth king.
By the time Amenhotep IV claimed the throne, Egyptians who worshipped Amun, the god of the Sun and Air, had grown incredibly powerful and had accumulated enough riches and status to challenge the pharaoh’s sovereignty.
That’s when both of them started to accomplish their master plan. Amenhotep IV and Queen Nefertiti began to influence Egyptian culture when they succeeded to the monarchy in Thebes approximately 1350 B.C.
He abolished Egyptian beliefs and traditions, shuttered monasteries, and deposed Amun’s worship in favor of Aten, his and Nefertiti’s favorite Egyptian deity.
Amenhotep IV ruined Amun’s titles and iconography by making Aten the center of religious activity.
During his first month, he constructed a sequence of holy places to Aten.
Egyptian historical experts even realized that they alter the plural “gods” to the singular “god.
Their intention was to seize power under him and Nefertiti alone.
It wasn’t enough for them that Amenhotep IV then changed his surname to Akhenaten, which means “Living Principle of Aten,” in the sixth year of his kingdom.
Similarly, Queen Nefertiti added to her name, which signified “Gorgeous are the charms of Aten, a Lovely Lady has come,”. It all resulted from the thought they too much invested in the God Aten.
They governed with such unparalleled dominance that some speculations came out as perhaps Queen Nefertiti was a Pharaoh herself.
Queen Nefertiti Reigning as a Pharaoh
From around the 12th year after Akhenaten’s 17-year dynasty, Queen Nefertiti seemed to vanish from world history.
It was even speculated that she might well have died at that moment, but it’s more believed that she took on the name Neferneferuaten and became her partner’s formal co-regent.
Smenkhkare, who some experts believe was another pseudonym for Nefertiti, succeeded Akhenaten as pharaoh.
Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh who reigned Egypt in the 15th century B.C., wore a ceremonial fake mustache and ruled Egypt as a male figure.
If Nefertiti stayed in power during and after Akhenaten’s death, it’s conceivable she initiated the restoration of her husband’s spiritual beliefs, which would be realized during King Tutankhamun’s dynasty.
Neferneferuaten once used a writer to make heavenly gifts to Amun, begging him to restore and alleviate the kingdom’s blackness.
Queen Nefertiti’s Death
Whenever Amen-Ra devotion was reinstated after Akhenaten’s dynasty, Queen Nefertiti was expelled from Egypt.
According to some legends, Akhenaten died and his replacement, Pharaoh Smenkhkare, was secretly Nefertiti in secret.
Regrettably, no fundamental proof shows to back up any of these claims. But It’s not the first time she’s been accused of dressing up as a man!
Finally, some say that Nefertiti was expelled by Akhenaten because she was unable to deliver a male replacement, while other scholars assume she killed herself when her child Mekitaten died during delivery at the age of 13.
Most of these claims can never be verified.
Nevertheless, some historical scholars discovered something mind-blowing in these recent years!
What they claim is a concealed passage within Egyptian tombs in 2015.
It has architectural irregularities inside of that point to a hidden room containing Nefertiti’s burial! Finally, …
Centuries Biggest Discovery
A prospective survey near King Tutankhamun’s tomb was reported in a report published in the journal Nature in 2020.
The findings were groundbreaking! The findings supported the historians’ notion that the king’s funeral chamber housed a larger, concealed mausoleum.
Obviously, there was something in the contrary direction of the burying chamber’s northern wall!
Final Words
At the altitude of the Ancient Egypt Emperor’s wealth and power, Nefertiti was Queen.
Her husband and she started a religious revolution and built a new capital city. And Nefertiti climbed to the position of co-Pharaoh, making her one of the emperor’s few female leaders.
She was also King Tutankhamun’s stepmother and mother-in-law.
However, much of her existence is veiled in secrecy.
This immaculately preserved statue, her most famous picture, offers a fascinating look into the life of one of the ancient world’s great Queens.
Queen Nefertiti was always a beautiful yet historical figure whose life, sovereignty, and death were questionable for a lot of people and mysterious in a way!
Yet, she was graceful in all her charismatic way and charm that she showed and surprised all her kingdom.
There are very few female figures are present in the ancient history of civilization that has so much power to mesmerize people by her death and by her beauty. And Queen Nefertiti was one of them!
