👑

Nefertiti

Queen of the Egyptian New Kingdom, Who With Her Husband Carried Out a Religious Reform

One Legend Remembered for Life · Small Roles, Famous Names

The New Kingdom of EgyptThe Amarna Religious ReformThe Bust of Nefertiti

Who they are

Nefertiti (c. 1370–c. 1330 BC) was the principal wife of the Egyptian New Kingdom pharaoh Akhenaten, and the two together carried out an exceedingly radical religious reform in ancient Egyptian history, abolishing the earlier polytheistic tradition and instead honoring the sun disk "Aten" as the sole supreme god, moving the capital to the newly built city of Amarna; this religious innovation called the "Amarna period" was swiftly overturned after Akhenaten’s death, later pharaohs (including the famous Tutankhamun) restoring the traditional polytheistic system. Nefertiti herself seems to have played a political and religious role in this reform far beyond the ceremonial role of a traditional Egyptian queen, and some scholars even conjecture that she may for a time have briefly reigned as regent with the status of pharaoh after her husband’s death. The painted limestone bust of Nefertiti unearthed by a German archaeological team at the Amarna site in 1912, with its refined features and elegant bearing, thereafter became one of the most recognizable images of ancient Egyptian art in the world, now held in the Neues Museum in Berlin.

Primary sourcesThe painted bust of Nefertiti unearthed at Amarna, Egypt (now in the Neues Museum, Berlin)The Amarna letter tablets

Key stories

The Amarna Religious Revolution

Nefertiti and her husband Akhenaten together carried out a radical monotheistic reform, deposing the earlier polytheistic system headed by the god Amun and moving the capital from Thebes to the newly built city of Amarna; in a great many official reliefs and murals Nefertiti often appears alongside the pharaoh, jointly presiding over religious rites, the frequency of her image and the height of her ceremonial standing exceedingly rare among earlier Egyptian queens, reflecting the substantive political role she may have played in this religious reform movement.

The Discovery of the Bust of Nefertiti

In 1912 the archaeological team led by the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt unearthed this exquisitely made painted bust of Nefertiti in an ancient sculptor’s workshop at the Amarna site; its symmetrical, refined proportions of feature and its vivid, lifelike rendering of expression were thereafter hailed as a peak of ancient Egyptian sculpture, and one of the most widely known images of ancient Egyptian art in the world — the bust is currently held in the Neues Museum in Berlin, its ownership long a focus of the heritage-repatriation dispute between Egypt and Germany.

Version differences

The exact fate of Nefertiti in her later years (whether she briefly reigned independently as regent or king under the name "Neferneferuaten") is a long-debated unsolved puzzle in Egyptology, the existing evidence not yet enough to form a scholarly consensus.

Relationships

Mother

⚱️Tutankhamun　Tutankhamun is generally thought to be a son of Akhenaten; Nefertiti’s exact kinship is still debated by scholars

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

The Berlin painted bustThe painted limestone bust of Nefertiti unearthed in 1912 and now in the Neues Museum, Berlin, is one of the most widely known images of ancient Egyptian art, its ownership also a long-standing heritage-repatriation issue between Egypt and Germany.

Appears in

The Dawn of the Bronze AgeHatshepsut and Nefertiti: Women Rulers of Egypt

← Back to Figures