As we have it the bust of Nefertiti is artistically and ritualistically complete, exalted, harsh and alien… This is the least consoling of great art works. Its popularity is based on misunderstanding and suppression of its unique features. The proper response to the Nefertiti bust is fear.24
Nefertiti herself would probably have approved.
Historical Events
Years Before Christ
LOCAL CHRONOLOGY
EGYPT
3000
Archaic Period (Dynasties 1–2)
Unification of Egypt
2500
Old Kingdom (Dynasties 3–6)
Djoser step-pyramid at Sakkara
Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza
2000
First Intermediate Period (Dynasties 7–11)
Middle Kingdom (Dynasties 11–13)
Theban kings re-unify Egypt
1500
Second Intermediate Period (Dynasties 14–17)
Hyksos kings in Northern Egypt
New Kingdom (Dynasties 18–20)
Amarna Period
Ramesses II
1000
Third Intermediate Period (Dynasties 21–25)
Kings at Tanis
Nubian kings
500
Late Period (Dynasties 26–31)
Ptolemaic Period
Egypt part of Roman Empire
A.D.1
Notes
Introduction
1 Description of Nefertiti from the tomb of Apy; Davies, N. de G. (1906), The Rock Tombs of el-Amama, vol. 4, London: 19–20.
2 Breasted, J. H. (1924), Ikhnaton, The Religious Revolutionary, The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 2, Cambridge: 109.
3 The modern myths and legends surrounding Akhenaten are fully explored in Monserrat, D. (2000), Akhenaten; history, fantasy and ancient Egypt, London.
4 Desroches-Noblecourt, C. (1963), Tutankhamen: life and death of a pharaoh, London: 75.
5. Velikovsky, I. (1960), Oedipus and Akhnaton, New York: 201.
6 Weigall, A. (1922), The Life and Times of Akhenaton, London: 44.
7 Buttles, J. (1908), The Queens of Egypt, London: 131–6.
Chapter 1 The Imperial Family
1 From the legend of the divine birth of Amenhotep III as recorded on the walls of the Luxor Temple. For a full translation of this text consult Davies, B. G. (1992), Egyptian Historical Records of the Later Eighteenth Dynasty, fascicule 4, Warminster: 28–31.
2 The conception of Amenhotep III. See Davies, Egyptian Historical Records of the Later Eighteenth Dynasty, fascicule 4: 28–31.
3 During the 18th Dynasty it was believed that the sphinx was a representation of the sun god Re-Harakhty.
4 Smith, G. E. (1912), The Royal Mummies, Catalogue Général des Antiquités Egyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Cairo: 42–6.
5 Amarna Letter 19. For a full translation and commentary on this and all other Amarna letters consult Moran, W. L. (1992), The Amarna Letters, Baltimore and London.
6 Mortuary temple stela of Amenhotep III. Translated in Davies, Egyptian Historical Records of the Later Eighteenth Dynasty, fascicule 4: 1–5.
7 We know that the marriage was celebrated before Year 2 as one of Amenhotep’s hunting scarabs, dated to that year, includes the name of the queen. It is highly unlikely that Tiy was younger than ten years of age as Egyptian girls were not usually married before they reached puberty.
8 For a full translation of this and other Amenhotep III scarabs consult Blankenberg-van Delden, C. (1969), The Large Commemorative Scarabs of Amenhotep III, Leiden.
9 As suggested by Maspero in Davis, T. M. et al. (1910), The Tomb of Queen Tiyi, London: xv. A parallel may perhaps be drawn with the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981; the future Princess of Wales may have been technically a commoner, but she was certainly not of ‘mediocre extraction’.
10 Aldred, C. (1957), The end of the el-Amarna period, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 43: 30–41: 35.
11 It is now recognized that the name Yuya does not bear any resemblance to known Asiatic names of the period.
12 The opinions of Petrie and Budge are quoted and discussed in Davis, T. M. (1907), The Tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou, London: xviii–xxi.
13 Simon, V. S. (1984), Tiye: Nubian queen of Egypt, in I. van Sertima (ed.), Black Women in Antiquity, Journal of African Civilizations 6:1: 56–63.
14 For a discussion of ‘race’ in ancient Egypt consult Baird, K. A. (1996), Ancient Egyptians and the issue of race, in Lefkowitz, M. R. and Rogers, G. M. (eds), Black Athena Revisited, Chapel Hill and London: 103–11.
15 Davis, The Tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou: xxviii. See the commentary on Davis’s text given by Dennis Forbes in Forbes, D. C. (1991), Finding pharaoh’s in-laws, Amarna Letters 1, 4–14.
16 Osiris beds were a physical manifestation of the re-creative powers of Osiris, god of the underworld. A seed bed in the shape of the god was planted so that it would sprout with life in the same way that the god himself was reborn after death.
17 Discussed in Troy, L. (1986), Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History, Uppsala: 86.
18 The Epigraphic Survey (1980), The Tomb of Kheruef, Chicago: 42.
19 Buttles, J. (1908), The Queens of Egypt, London.
20 Aldred, C. (1980), Egyptian Art, London: 170.
21 Scott, N. (1957), Amun-Hotpe the magnificent, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 15.6: 149.
22 Amarna Letter EA 4.
23 Amarna Letter EA 1.
24 See Blankenberg-van Delden, The Large Commemorative Scarabs of Amenhotep III, 18, 129–33. Schulman discusses this scarab together with all the evidence for Amenhotep’s diplomatic marriages in Schulman, A. R. (1979), Diplomatic marriage in the Egyptian New Kingdom, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 38: 177–93.
25 Amarna Letter EA 29.
26 Amarna Letter EA 22.
27 Amarna Letter EA 17.
28 Davis, The Tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou: 37–41.
29 The Epigraphic Survey, The Tomb of Kheruef: 43. For a description of Amenhotep’s festivals consult Kemp, B. J. (1989), Ancient Egypt: anatomy of a civilization, London: 213–17.
30 Davies, Egyptian Historical Records of the Later Eighteenth Dynasty, fascicule 4: 36.
31 For a description of the site, its history and its inscribed material see Hayes, W. C. (1951), Inscriptions from the Palace of Amenhotep III, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 10: 35–40, 82–104, 156–83, 231–42.
32 For a comprehensive review of the later sculpture of Amenhotep III consult Johnson, W. R. (1996), Amenhotep III and Amarna: some new considerations, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 82: 65–82.
33 Steindorff, G. and Seele, K. C. (1957), When Egypt Ruled the East, Chicago: 79; for the publication of this stela see Griffiths, F. Ll (1926), Stela in honour of Amenhotep III and Taya from Tell el-Amarnah, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 12: 1–2.
34 Baikie, J. (1926), The Amarna Age: a study of the crisis of the ancient world, London.
35 Some believe that the fact that both kings were depicted in this kind of garment is intended to convey a specific meaning; consult Sourouzian, H. (1994), Inventaire iconographique des statues en manteau jubilaire de l’époque thinite jusqu’à leur disparition sous Amenhotep III, in C. Berger et al., Hommages à Jean Leclant I, Paris.
36 Velikovsky, I. (1960), Oedipus and Akhnaton, New York: 48–9. Velikovsky is the strongest proponent of the idea that Amenhotep was now a bisexual cross-dresser, as this fits well with his theory linking Amenhotep IV with the legend of Oedipus.
37 Baikie, The Amarna Age: 236.
38 Amarna Letter EA 23. W. L. Moran, The Amarna Letters: 61–2, believes that the statue of the goddess was sent to Egypt not to cure the ailing king but so that she could be present as a religious symbol at his marriage to Tadukhepa.
39 Amarna Letter ΕA 59. Tunip was never an official vassal of Egypt and could more properly have expected to receive protection
from Mitanni.
40 For a full description of the mummified remains of ‘Amenhotep III’ see Smith, G. E. (1912), The Royal Mummies, Catalogue Général des Antiquités Egyptiennes du Musée du Caire, Cairo: 46–51.
41 See Wente, Ε. F. and Harris, J. E. (1992), Royal Mummies of the 18th Dynasty, in Reeves, C. N. (ed.), After Tutankhamun: research and excavation in the royal necropolis at Thebes, London and New York: 2–20.
Chapter 2 A Beautiful Woman Has Come
1 Text taken from the colonnade of the ‘Mansion of the Benben-Stone’, Karnak. Translated in Redford, D. B. (1984), Akhenaten: the heretic king, Princeton: 77.
2 See for example Redford, Akhenaten: the heretic king: 57: ‘It may well be that he [Amenhotep] was kept in the background because of a congenital ailment which made him hideous to behold.’
3 Dodson, A. (1990), Crown Prince Djhutmose and the royal sons of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 76: 87–96. See also Dodson, A. (1991), Two who might have been king, Amarna Letters 1: 26–30.
4 Davis, T. M. (1907), The Tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou, London.
5 See for example Petrie, W. M. F. (1894), Tell el Amarna, London: 38ff.
6 Redford has given a detailed account of all the evidence presented in favour of a joint reign. Consult Redford, D. B. (1967), Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, History and Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt: seven studies, Toronto: 88–169.
7 Amarna Letter EA 26.
8 The question of Nefertiti’s parentage is discussed in Seele, K. C. (1955), King Ay and the close of the Amarna Age, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 14: 168–80, and in Aldred, C. (1957), The end of the el-Amarna period, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 43: 30–41. These two experts employ the same evidence but draw different conclusions.
9 The suggestion that the two women could be Tey and Nefertiti was first made by Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt and accepted by Julia Samson: see Desroches-Noblecourt, C. (1978), Une exceptionnelle décoration pour ‘la nourrice qui devint reine’, La Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France 28: 20–27; Samson, J. (1985, revised 1990), Nefertiti and Cleopatra: queen-monarchs of ancient Egypt, London: 57–8. The equally plausible suggestion that they may in fact be Nefertiti and Meritaten is made by Dorothea Arnold in Arnold, D. (ed.) (1996), The Royal Women of Amarna: images of beauty from ancient Egypt, New York: 91–3.
10 The suggestion that ‘God’s Father’ should be translated as ‘King’s father-in-law’ was first made by L. Borchardt (1905), Der Agyptische Titel ‘Vater des Gottes’ als Bezeichnung für ‘Vater oder Schwiegervater des Königs’, Berichte über die Verhandlungen, Leipzig: 254.
11 For a review of all the evidence for Mutnodjmet at Amarna consult Hari, R. (1964), Horemheb et la Reine Moutnedjemet, Geneva.
12 As suggested by Aldred, The end of the el-Amarna period, JEA 43: 30–41, 39.
13 Davies, N. de G. (1908), The Rock Tombs of el-Amarna, vol. 6: Tombs of Parennefer, Tutu and Ay, London: 21.
14 Now housed in the Petrie Museum, London.
15 Davies, N. de G. (1923), Akhenaten at Thebes, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 9: 136–45.
16 For the history of the Nubian-style wig, consult Aldred, C. (1957), Hair styles and history, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 15.6: 141–8; Eaton-Krauss, M. (1981), Miscellanea Amarnensia, Chronique d’Egypte 56: 245–64.
17 Petrie, W. M. F. (1931), Seventy Years in Archaeology, London: 138–9.
18 Extract from the second Amarna boundary stela, translation adapted from Davies, B. G. (1995), Egyptian Historical Records of the Later Eighteenth Dynasty, fascicule 6, Warminster: 12.
19 See Ray, J. D. (1985), Review article of Redford’s Akhenaten, Göttinger Miszellen 86: 81–93. Ray suggests that Akhenaten may have been celebrating his thirtieth birthday. This would, however, make the king older at the time of his accession than is generally supposed.
20 The origins of the word talatat in this context are obscure, although it may be derived from the Arabic word for three, referring to the fact that the blocks are three hand-spans long.
21 The work of the Akhenaten Temple Project is described in detail in Smith, R. W. and Redford, D. B. (1976), The Akhenaten Temple Project, Warminster. See also Smith, R. W. (1970), Computer helps scholars re-create an Egyptian temple, National Geographic 138: 5: 634–55. Younger readers will be amused to find that Smith’s ‘space-age’ computer employed punch cards and magnetic tape.
22 Figures taken from Smith and Redford, The Akhenaten Temple Project: 78.
23 Ibid. 34.
24 See Cooney, J. D. (1965), Amarna Reliefs from Hermopolis in American Collections, Brooklyn.
25 Consult Hall, E. S. (1986), The Pharaoh Smites His Enemies, Berlin: 4.
26 For a discussion of this crown consult Samson, J. (1973), Amarna crowns and wigs, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 59: 47–59; Green, L. (1992), Queen as Goddess, the religious role of royal women in the late-eighteenth dynasty, Amarna Letters 2: 28–41.
27 Discussed with references in Arnold, The Royal Women of Amarna: 107–8.
28 Some Hwt-Benben blocks display the shorter form of her name carved deeply and on a large scale beside the longer name which, scratched lightly and at a smaller scale, appears to have been added as an afterthought by the mason. For a discussion of the development of Nefertiti’s name, see Samson, J. (1976), Royal Names in Amarna, Chronique d’Egypte 51: 30–38.
Chapter 3 The Aten Dazzles
1 From the Great Hymn to the Aten, preserved in the tomb of Ay at Amarna. For a full translation see chapter text.
2 Johnson, W. R. (1993), The Deified Amenhotep III as the living Re-Herakhty; stylistic and iconographic considerations, Sesto Congresso Internazionale de Egittologia, vol. 2, Turin: 231–6.
3 Discussed in Johnson, W. R. (1996), Amenhotep III and Amarna: some new considerations, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 82: 65–82.
4 From the divine conception of Hatchepsut carved on the wall of the Deir el-Bahri mortuary temple. Consult Sethe, K. and Helck, W. (1906–58), Urkunden des 18. Dynastie, Leipzig and Berlin, 4.219, 13–220, 6; Breasted, J. H. (1988), Ancient Records of Egypt, 2nd edition, vol. 2, part 2, Chicago: 187–212.
5 Redford, D. B. (1981), Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar of New York 3: 87ff.
6 Amarna boundary stela. For a full translation of this text consult Davies, B. G. (1995), Egyptian Historical Records of the Later Eighteenth Dynasty, fascicule 6, Warminster: 9.
7 Androgyny and creation is discussed in detail in Troy, L. (1986), Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth and History, Uppsala: 1.2.
8 Even Hatchepsut, whose lack of a husband and son allowed her to step outside the traditional queen’s role, acted as she did in order to preserve her dynasty. Consult Tyldesley, J. A. (1996), Hatchepsut: the female pharaoh, London.
9 Inscription from the Amarna tomb of Panehesy. For a full publication of this tomb consult Davies, N. de G. (1905), The Rock Tombs of el-Amama, vol. 2, London. Davies’s footnote to the quoted text (p. 31) reads: ‘It will be noticed that these court favours, although in the gift of the king, would largely depend upon the goodwill of the queen.’
10 Davies, N. de G. (1905), The Rock Tombs of el-Amarna, vol. 3, London: 18.
11 Consult Ikram, S. (1989), Domestic shrines and the cult of the royal family, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 75: 89–101.
12 As discussed in Arnold, D. (ed.) (1996), The Royal Women of Amarna: images of beauty from ancient Egypt, New York: 100. The garden shrines associated with the private houses were believed by their original excavators to be birth bowers.
13 See Silverman, D. P. (1982), Wit and Humour, Egypt’s Golden Age, Boston Museum, Boston: 277–81.
14 Woolley, C. L. (1922), Excavations at Tell el-Amarna, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 8: 48–81.
15 Kemp, B. J. (1979), Wall paintings from the workmen’s village at el-Amarna, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 65: 47–53.
16 For a discussion of the role of B
es at Amarna consult Bosse-Griffiths, K. (1977), A Beset Amulet from the Amarna Period, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 63: 98–106.
17 Weigall, A. (1922), The Life and Times of Akhenaton, revised edition, London: 136.
18 Aldred, C. (1968), Akhenaten, Pharaoh of Egypt: A New Study, London: 189.
19 This interpretation of the Great Hymn to the Aten is based on a translation suggested by Steven Snape. Many versions of this hymn have been published, some literal, others more lyrical. See, for example, Gardiner, A. (1961), Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford: 225–7; Lichtheim, M. (1976), Ancient Egyptian Literature II: the New Kingdom, Los Angeles: 96–100; Simpson, W. K. (ed.) (1973), The Literature of Ancient Egypt, New Haven and London: 289–95.
20 Translation given in Martin, G. T. (1986), Shabtis of private persons in the Amarna Period, Mitteilungen der Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo 42: 109–29.
21 Weigall, The Life and Times of Akhenaton: 166.
22 Samson, J. (1985, revised 1990), Nefertiti and Cleopatra: queen-monarchs of ancient Egypt, London: 27.
23 Redford, D. B. (1984), Akhenaten: the heretic king, Princeton: 235.
24 Davies, N. de G. (1923), Akhenaten at Thebes, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 23: 132–52: 150.
Chapter 4 Images of Amarna
1 Extract from the rock stela of father and son sculptors Men and Bak, at Aswan. For a full translation of this stela consult Davies, B. G. (1994) Egyptian Historical Records of the Later Eighteenth Dynasty, fascicule 5, Warminster: 71.
2 Weigall, A. (1922), The Life and Times of Akhenaton, London: 51–2.
3 Gardiner, A. (1961), Egypt of the Pharaohs, Oxford: 214.
4 Grimal, N., A History of Egypt, translated by I. Shaw (1992), Oxford: 233.
5 Aldred, C. (1973), Akhenaten and Nefertiti, London: 11.
6 The more louche of Amenhotep’s representations may well have been carved some time after his death.
Nefertiti Page 23
