Nefertiti's name was a whole sentence: the beautiful one has come
One of the most copied artworks from ancient Egypt is the painted bust of a queen whose own origins remain a mystery. Nefertiti helped her husband Akhenaten overturn Egypt's religion in favour of the sun disc. Scholars still argue over who her parents were, and whether she briefly ruled Egypt herself.
Nefertiti, who lived roughly from 1370 to 1330 BC, was the chief royal wife of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten. Together they reigned during what was arguably ancient Egypt's wealthiest era and led a radical religious overhaul, promoting Atenism, an exclusive and possibly monotheistic cult centred on the sun disc and its special link to the royal family. Early scenes from Thebes show her beside the king, then still named Amenhotep IV, worshipping the Aten.
Her name, in the modern pronunciation Nefertiti, was originally a phrase meaning the beautiful one has come, probably pronounced in her day something like Naftita. Her titles included Lady of the Two Lands and Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt. Almost nothing is known of her life before marriage. Tomb scenes mention a sister, Mutbenret. The courtier Ay held the title God's Father, sometimes given to a pharaoh's father-in-law, and his wife Tey was called nurse of the queen, so some propose Ay as her father, though no source says so outright. Theories that she was Akhenaten's sister or a foreign princess, Tadukhipa of Mitanni, lack support.
The couple had at least six daughters, among them Ankhesenpaaten, who later married Tutankhamun and took the name Ankhesenamun. Nefertiti was once proposed as Tutankhamun's mother, but a genetic study of mummies suggests otherwise. After Akhenaten's death, some scholars think she reigned briefly as a female pharaoh under the name Neferneferuaten, meaning beautiful is the beauty of Aten, just before Tutankhamun, an identification still debated.
Her modern fame rests largely on the bust now in Berlin's Neues Museum. It is attributed to the sculptor Thutmose and was dug up from his buried workshop in the early 20th century.
Source: Nefertiti
