Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

The face of Nefertiti

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Nefertiti.
Chief consort of Akenathen.
Hereditary Princess.
Nofretete_Neues_MuseumGreat of Praises.
Lady of Grace.
Sweet of Love.
Lady of The Two Lands.
Main King’s Wife, his beloved.
Lady of all Women.
Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Queen of Amarna.

Briefly, this last one: after the death of Akenathen she moved from Amarna, by now a fallen city, back to Thebes, where she probably reigned as pharaoh.
And she had a weird taste in headgear.

This last is not a flippant observation: of all the queens of Egypt, Nefertiti was the only one to wear the headgear wearing which she is portrayed in the famous bust at the Berlin’s Neues Museum. Archaeologists and cultural historians have wondered for ages what that conical hat did represent.

reconstruction-egyptian-queen-nefertiti_4

Her bust was discovered in 1913, and has long been one of the reference artifacts used to determine realistic physical proportions of the ancient Egyptians. Now, we have a reconstruction of her face, and a Photoshop animation to go with it.

But beyond her true visage, Nefertiti still holds a number of mysteries.
Did she really reign as Ankhkheperure-mery-Neferkheperure for two years or more between the death of Akenathen and the brief reign of Tutankhamun?
This problem alone has kept egyptologists awake for decades.
And reading about it as I collect the final pieces of reference for AMARNA is quite fun.

 

 

 

Author: Davide Mana

Paleontologist. By day, researcher, teacher and ecological statistics guru. By night, pulp fantasy author-publisher, translator and blogger. In the spare time, Orientalist Anonymous, guerilla cook.

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