[B][SIZE=6]20 Facts You May Not Have Known About Queen Nefertiti
Nefertiti is one of the most fascinating Egyptian rulers in history. She was queen, but she was also a priestess and might have even been a pharaoh. Because she and her husband, Amenhotep IV (aka Akhenaten), tossed out all of the old gods and set up the sun as god in the form of Aten. This didn’t make the couple very popular, but it did give them absolute power over their subjects.
In her 12 years of rule, Queen Nefertiti was held in high regard by her husband, her royal subjects, and Thutmose, the sculptor who captured her face of a great beauty. Nefertiti was depicted as wearing the crown of a pharaoh and may have ruled as one after her husband’s death and as King Tut
prepared to rule.
When she vanishes from scrolls, inscriptions, and other depictions, historians have varying views on what happened to Queen Nefertiti. Did she change her name and become Djeserkheperure Smenkhare or Smenkhkare Ankhetkheperure, a co-regent ruling singularly or alongside King Tut? Or did she simply die? History was erased in part due to the angry successors to Akhenaten’s reign. And artifacts may have been looted or moved.
Archaeologists have been searching for Nefertiti’s tomb for decades and just may have found it behind King Tut’s. A University of Arizona archaeologist, Dr. Nicholas Reeves, might have found the tomb of Nefertiti, hiding in plain sight. Signs that Nefertiti was a ruler in her own right may explain why the tomb next to King Tut’s is so large and one reserved for a higher position.
Over three thousand years later, Queen Nefertiti still holds historians and history buffs spellbound. Who was Nefertiti? Wife, mother, queen, beauty icon, punisher, or pharaoh? Read below to learn more about this fascinating Egyptian female leader and vote up the Nefertiti facts you were most surprised to learn.
this too shall pass