Yasser Metwally

Figure 4.  The Temple of Philae (Click to enlarge figure)

In many civilisations the divinity of the leader or strong juju-medicine was passed on to his supporters and soldiers who believed that no harm could come to them if they were true believers. (This was the case with the followers of The (Mad) Mahdi who sacked Khartoum and the Simbas in the Congo in the 1970s). As a result the army would follow the king into battle without fear. This idea may have been part of the reason why Ramesses II described the battle of Qadesh in the way that he did. His soldiers had supposedly deserted him so the invincible Pharaoh took on the opposing army single-handed and drove them off, thus saving the day for Egypt (more or less, according to the Egyptian story).

• Conclusion

The concept of divine kingship was central to the continuance of rule and civil order in Egypt. The Pharaoh was seen as the emissary of the gods and life was good as long as the religious rites were performed and ma’at was maintained. The king’s notional strength came from the support of the gods and as long as this was maintained no ill could befall the country. Once this was lost, however, the kingdom was thrown into turmoil until a new strong king, who had the support of the gods, took the throne.

The importance of this was recognised by all the pharaohs up to Roman times and each new king perpetuated the myth of divine conception as a means of legitimising his (and sometimes her) claim to the throne.

Figure 4. Queen Hatshepsut’s (Click to enlarge figure)

These propaganda worked well to cement Hatshepsut’s position. But as Tuthmose III grew, her sovereignty grew tenuous. He not only resented his lack of authority, but no doubt harbored only ill will towards his step-mother’s consort Senmut. Senmut originally intended to be buried in the tomb he designed for Hatshepsut, but was actually buried nearby in his own tomb. Not long after his death, however, his sarcophagus was completely destroyed. The hard stone that had been carved for his funerary coffin was found in over 1,200 pieces. His mummy was never found. Hatshepsut’s mummy was likewise stolen and her tomb destroyed. Only one of the canopic jars was found, the one containing her liver. After her death, it is presumed that Tuthmose III ordered the systematic erasure of her name from any monument she had built, including her temple at Deir-el-Bahri. Since most of the images of her were actually males, it was convenient to simply change the name “Hatshepsut” to “Tuthmose” I, II or III wherever there was a caption. Senmut’s name was also removed. Whether Tuthmose killed Hatshepsut, Senmut and Nofrure is questionable but likely. Since he paid little respect to her in death, it is quite possible he paid even less in life.

Figure 5. Queen Hatshepsut’s (Click to enlarge figure)

While this account is the most accepted of theories, the Hatshepsut Problem was a source of endless debate near the turn of the twentieth century. The archeaologists Edouard Naville and Kurt Sethe went head-to-head on the order of rule between the three Tuthmoses and Hatshepsut. Since it is generally assumed that if one ruler’s name is replaced with another, the second ruler is in power at the time, a confusing problem exists. Theoretical timelines indicate that the succession followed this sequence:

1. Tuthmose I

2. Tuthmose III

3. Tuthmose III and Hatshepsut, together

4. Tuthmose III alone

5. Tuthmose I and Tuthmose II

6. Tuthmose II alone

7. Hatshepsut and Tuthmose III

8. Tuthmose III alone

This sequence seems as illogical as it is complicated, and only after the discovery of the tomb of Ineni, the architect of the tomb of Tuthmose I. His description follows a more intuitive sequence, and disproves the previously-held belief that only Tuthmose III would put his name in Hatshepsut’s place.

Not only was Hatshepsut’s name erased, but some of her monuments were destroyed. She built two obelisks of red granite, the largest built to that point. This was a continuation of the works of her father, who was not able to complete all his construction plans. Her name appeared on the obelisks, but instead of toppling them, Tuthmose III ordered them sheathed in masonry. Their gilded pyramidions were probably the only original elements to be exposed. Later, one of the obelisks was destroyed after all.

Video 1. The Egypatian royal mummies

In all, Hatshepsut accomplished what no woman had before her. She ruled the most powerful, advanced civilization in the world, successfully, for twenty years. Even if there were some who resented her success, her success stands for all eternity.

Figure 6. Queen Hatshepsut’s (Click to enlarge figure)

Queen Hatshepsut was the first great woman in recorded history: the forerunner of such figures as Cleopatra, Catherine the Great and Elizabeth I.

Her rise to power went against all the conventions of her time. She was the first wife and Queen of Thutmose II and on his death proclaimed herself Pharaoh, denying the old king’s son, her nephew, his inheritance. To support her cause she claimed the God Amun-Ra spoke, saying “welcome my sweet daughter, my favourite, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maatkare, Hatshepsut. Thou art the King, taking possession of the Two Lands.” She dressed as a king, even wearing a false beard and the Egyptian people seem to have accepted this unprecedented behaviour.

Video 2. The identification of Queen Hatshepsut’s mummy by DNA analysis (comment in the arabic language)

She remained in power for twenty years and during this time the Egyptian economy flourished, she expanded trading relations and built magnificent temples as well as restoring many others. Eventually her nephew grew into a man and took his rightful place as pharaoh. The circumstances of this event are unknown and what became of Hatshepsut is a mystery.

Figure 7. Queen Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el Bahri (Click to enlarge figure)

Hatshepsut’s successor became the greatest of all Pharaohs, Thutmose III, “the Napoleon of ancient Egypt.” He had her name cut away from the temple walls which suggests he was not overly fond of his auntie. But the fact that she was able to contain the ambitions of this charismatic and wily fellow for so many years, hints at the qualities of her character.

Figure 8. Queen Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el Bahri (Click to enlarge figure)

Figure 9. Parade’ and ‘The Army’ are etchings made from drawings done at Deir el Bahri. ‘The Army’ represents a trading expedition to the Land of Punt (thought to be somewhere on the coast of Somalia) and shows Nehsi the Nubian general. (Click to enlarge figure)

Video 1. The Great Sphinx of Giza

To do so, they trenched out a deep, U-shaped ditch that isolated a huge rectangular bedrock block for carving the Sphinx. This enclosure is deepest immediately around the body, with a shelf at the rear of the monument where it was left unfinished and a shallower extension to the north where important archaeological finds have been made.

Figure 4. The Great Sphinx of Giza (Click to enlarge figure)

The good, hard limestone that lay around the Sphinx’s head was probably all quarried for blocks to build the pyramids. The limestone removed to shape the body of the beast was evidently employed to build the two temples to the east of the Sphinx, on a terrace lower than the floor of the Sphinx enclosure, one almost directly in front of the paws, the other to the south of the first one.

It is generally thought that quarrying around the original knoll revealed rock that was too poor in quality for construction. Therefore, some visionary individual conceived of the plan to turn what was left of the knoll into the Sphinx. However, the Sphinx may equally well have been planned from the start for this location, good rock or bad. The walls of the Sphinx enclosure are of the same characteristics as the strata of the Sphinx body and exhibit similar states of erosion.

Video 2 The Great Sphinx of Giza

The bedrock body of the Sphinx became a standing section of the deeper limestone layers of the Giza Plateau. The lowest stratum of the Sphinx is the hard, brittle rock of the ancient reef, referred to as Member I. All of the geological layers slope about three degrees from northwest to southeast, so they are higher at the rump of the Sphinx and lower at the front paws. Hence, the surface of this area has not appreciably weathered compared to the layers above it.

Figure 5. The Great Sphinx of Giza (Click to enlarge figure)

Most of the Sphnix’s lion body and the south wall and the upper part of the ditch were carved into the Member II, which consists of seven layers that are soft near the bottom, but become progressively harder near the top. However, the rock actually alternates between hard and soft. The head and neck of the Great Sphinx are made of Member III, which is better stone, though it becomes harder further up.

The Sphinx faces the rising sun with a temple to the front which resembles the sun temples which were built later by the kings of the 5th Dynasty. The lion was a solar symbol in more than one ancient Near Eastern culture. The royal human head on a lion’s body symbolized power and might, controlled by the intelligence of the pharaoh, guarantor of the cosmic order, or ma’at. Its symbolism survived for two and a half millennia in the iconography of Egyptian civilization.

Figure 6. The Great Sphinx of Giza (Click to enlarge figure)

The head and face of the Sphinx certainly reflect a style that belongs to Egypt’s Old Kingdom, and to the 4th Dynasty in particular. The overall form of his face is broad, almost square, with a broad chin. The headdress (known as the ‘nemes’ head-cloth), with its fold over the top of the head and its triangular planes behind the ears, the presence of the royal ‘uraeus’ cobra on the brow, the treatment of the eyes and lips all evidence that the Sphinx was carved during this period.

The sculptures of kings Djedefre, Khafre and Menkaure and other Old Kingdom Pharaohs, all show the same configuration that we see on the Sphinx. Some scholars believe that the Great Sphinx was originally bearded with the sort of formally plaited beard. Pieces of the Sphinx’s massive beard found by excavation adorn the British Museum in London and the Cairo Museum. However, it seems to possibly, if not probably be dated to the New Kingdom, and so was likely added at a later date. The rounded divine beard is an innovation of the New Kingdom, and according to Rainer Stadelmann, did not exist in the Old or Middle Kingdom. It may have been added to identify the god with Horemahket.

Figure 7. The Great Sphinx of Giza (Click to enlarge figure)

There is a hole in the top of the head, now filled in, that once provided support for additional head decoration. Depictions of the Sphinx from the latter days of ancient Egypt show a crown or plumes on the top of the head, but these were not necessarily part of the original design. The top of the head is flatter, however, than later Egyptian sphinxes.

The body is 72.55 meters in length and 20.22 meters tall. The face of the sphinx is four meters wide and its eyes are two meters high. The mouth is about two meters wide, while the nose would have been more than 1.5 meters long. The ears are well over one meter high. Part of the uraeus (sacred cobra), the nose, the lower ear and the ritual beard are now missing, while the eyes have been pecked out. The beard from the sphinx is on displayed in the British Museum.

Below the neck, the Great Sphinx has the body of a lion, with paws, claws and tail (curled round the right haunch), sitting on the bedrock of the rocky enclosure out of which the monument has been carved. The enclosure has taller walls to the west and south of the monument, in keeping with the present lie of the land.

When viewed close-up, the head and body of the Sphinx look relatively well proportioned, but seen from further away and side-on the head looks small in relation to the long body (itself proportionally much longer than is seen in later sphinxes). In its undamaged state, the body is likely to have appeared still larger all around in relation to the head, which has not been reduced as much by erosion. The human head is on a scale of about 30:1, while the lion body is on the smaller scale of 22:1. There could be a number of explanations for this discrepancy.

This was, as far as we know, one of the very first of the Egyptian sphinxes, though there is at least one other, attributed to Djedefre, that predates it. The rules of proportion commonly employed on later and smaller examples may not yet have been formulated at the time of the carving of the Great Sphinx of Giza. In any case, the carving of sphinxes was always a flexible formula, to an unusual degree in the context of Egyptian artistic conservatism.

Figure 8. The Great Sphinx of Giza (Click to enlarge figure)

Then again, the Sphinx may have been sculpted to look its best when seen from fairly close by and more or less from the front. There is also the possibility that there was simply insufficient good rock to make the head, where fine detail was required, any bigger. Also, the fissure at the rear of the Great Sphinx may have dictated a longer body, rather than one much too short.

There remains the possibility that the head has been remodeled at some time and thereby reduced in size, but on stylistic grounds alone this is not likely to have been done after the Old Kingdom times in ancient Egypt.

There are three passages into or under the Sphinx, two of them of obscure origin. The one of known cause is a short dead-end shaft behind the head drilled in the nineteenth century. No other tunnels or chambers in or under the Sphinx are known to exist. A number of small holes in the Sphinx body may relate to scaffolding at the time of carving.

Figure 9. The Great Sphinx of Giza (Click to enlarge figure)

The figure was buried for most of its life in the sand. It was King Thutmose IV (1425 - 1417 BC) who placed a stela between the front paws of the figure. On it, Thutmose describes an event, while he was still a prince, when he had gone hunting and fell asleep in the shade of the sphinx. During a dream, the sphinx spoke to Thutmose and told him to clear away the sand. The sphinx told him that if he did this, he would be rewarded with the kingship of Egypt. Thutmose carried out this request and the sphinx held up his end of the bargain. Of course, over time, the great statue, the only single instance of a colossal sculpture carved in the round directly out of the natural rock, once again found itself buried beneath the sand.

In the more modern era, when Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798, the Sphinx was buried once more with sand up to its neck, at by this point, we believe the nose had been missing for at least 400 years. Between 1816 and 1817, the Genoese merchant, Caviglia tried to clear away the sand, but he only managed to dig a trench down the chest of the statue and along the length of the forepaws. Auguste Mariette, the founder of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, also attempted to excavate the Sphinx, but gave up in frustration over the enormous amount of sand. He went on to explore the Khafre Valley Temple, but returned to the Great Sphinx to excavate in 1858. This time, he managed to clear the sand down to the rock floor of the ditch around the Sphinx, discovering in the process several sections of the protective walls around the ditch, as well as odd masonry boxes along the body of the monument which might have served as small shrines. However, he apparently still did not clear all the sand.

Figure 10. The Great Sphinx of Giza (Click to enlarge figure)

In 1885, Gaston Maspero, then Director of the Antiquities Service, once again tried to clear the Sphinx, but after exposing the earlier work of Caviglia and Mariette, he also was forced to abandon the project due to logistical problems.

Between 1925 and 1936, French engineer Emile Baraize excavated the Sphinx on behalf of the Antiquities Service, and apparently for the first time since antiquity, the great beast once again became exposed to the elements.

Figure 11. The Great Sphinx of Giza (Click to enlarge figure)

In fact, the sand has been its savior, since, being built of soft sandstone, it would have disappeared long ago had it not been buried for much of its existence.

Nevertheless, the statue is crumbling today because of the wind, humidity and the smog from Cairo. The rock was of poor quality here from the start, already fissured along joint lines that went back to the formation of the limestone millions of years ago. There is a particularly large fissure across the haunches, nowadays filled with cement, that also shows up in the walls of the enclosure in which the Sphinx sits.

Below the head, serious natural erosion begins. The neck is badly weathered, evidently by wind-blown sand during those long periods when only the head was sticking up out of the desert and the wind could catapult the sand along the surface and scour the neck and the extensions of the headdress that are missing altogether now. The stone here is not quite of such good quality as that of the head above.

Figure 12. The Great Sphinx of Giza (Click to enlarge figure)

Erosion below the neck does not look like scouring by wind-blown sand. In fact, so poor is the rock of the bulk of the body that it must have been deteriorating since the day it was carved out of the stone. We know that it needed repairs on more than one occasion in antiquity. It continues to erode before our very eyes, with spalls of limestone falling off the body during the heat of the day.

So, today, much of the work on the Great Sphinx at Giza is not directed at further explorations or excavations, but rather the preservation of this great wonder of Egypt. This is the focus, and while some might even today have the antiquity authorities digging about the monument looking for hidden chambers holding the secrets of Atlantis, that is not likely to happen any time soon.

---

References

Title	Author	Date	Publisher	Reference Number
Atlas of Ancient Egypt	Baines, John; Malek, Jaromir	1980	Les Livres De France	None Stated
Complete Pyramids, The (Solving the Ancient Mysteries)	Lehner, Mark	1997	Thames and Hudson, Ltd	ISBN 0-500-05084-8
Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt, The	Wilkinson, Richard H.	2000	Thames and Hudson, Ltd	ISBN 0-500-05100-3
Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, The	Shaw, Ian; Nicholson, Paul	1995	Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers	ISBN 0-8109-3225-3
Discovery of Egypt, The (Artists, Travellers and Scientists)	Beaucour, Fernand; Laissus, Yves; Orgogozo, Chantal	1990	Flammarion	ISBN 2-08-013506-6
Encyclopedia of Ancient Egyptian Architecture, The	Arnold, Dieter	2003	Princeton University Press	ISBN 0-691-11488-9
Excavating in Egypt: The Egypt Exploration Society 1882-1982	James, T. G. H.	1982	University of Chicago Press, The	ISBN 0-226-39192-2
Giza The Truth	Lawton, Ian; Ogilvie-Herald, Chris	2000	Virgin Publishing Ltd.	ISBN 0-7535-0412-x
Great Pyramids, The: Man’s Monument to Man	Valentine, Tom	1975	Pinnacle Books	ISBN 0-523-00517-2
Illustrated Guide to the Pyramids, The	Hawass, Zahi;  Siliotti, Alberto	2003	American University in Cairo Press, The	ISBN 977 424 825 2
Monuments of Civilization Egypt	Barcocas, Claudio	1972	Madison Square Press; Grosset & Dunlap	ISBN 0-448-02018-1
Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, The	Redford, Donald B. (Editor)	2001	American University in Cairo Press, The	ISBN 977 424 581 4
Pyramids, The (The Mystery, Culture, and Science of Egypt’s Great Monuments)	Verner, Miroslav	2001	Grove Press	ISBN 0-8021-1703-1
Pyramids and Sphinx, The (Egypt Under the Pharaohs)	Steward, Desmond	1979	Newsweek	ISBN 0-88225-271-2
Pyramids of Ancient Egypt, The	Hawass, Zahi A.	1990	Carnegie Museum of Natural History, The	ISBN 0-911239-21-9
Sacred Sites of Ancient Egypt	Oakes, Lorna	2001	Lorenz Books	ISBN (non stated)
Treasures of the Pyramids, The	Hawass, Zahi	2003	American University in Cairo Press, The	ISBN 977 424 798 1

Figure 3. Queen Nefertiti (Click to enlarge figure)

One influence within the personal lives of Nefertiti and Akhenaten must have been the presence of Akhenaten’s mother, Tiye. Tiye would have held a special position as a wise woman in his court, and we can only surmise that this must have had some affect on the younger couple’s relationship.

Queen Tiye as the “wise woman” of El Amarna was often depicted with facial features that not only signaled old age, but life experience and wisdom calling for respect and even veneration.

When Nefertiti’s face is represented with the first signs of old age, this may well signify that she has assumed the position of “wise woman” following the death of Tiye, at which point her court status would have been even further elevated.

• The Religion

Nefertiti and her King lived during a highly unusual period in Egyptian history. It was a time of religious controversy when the traditional gods of Egypt were more or less abandoned at least by the royal family in favor of a single god, the sun disk named Aten. However, it should be noted that the Egyptian religion did not actually become monotheistic, for cults related to the other gods did persist and they were never really erased from the Egyptian theology.

It is believed that Nefertiti was active in the religious and cultural changes initiated by her husband (some even maintain that it was she who initiated the new religion). She also had the position as a priest, and she was a devoted worshipper of the god Aten. In the royal religion, the King and Queen were viewed as “a primeval first pair”. It was they who worshipped the sun disk named Aten and it was only through them that this god was accessed. Indeed, the remainder of the population was expected to worship the royal family, as the rays of the sun fell and gave life to, it would seem, only the royal pair.

Figure 4. Queen Nefertiti (Click to enlarge figure)

However, many scholars presume that the Mutnodjme who later married King Haremhab is none other than the younger sister of Nefertiti. In Akhenaten: King of Egypt by Cyril Aldred, the author explains that a fragmentary statue of Mutnodjme discovered at Dendera describes her not only as “Chief Queen”, but also “God’s Wife [of Amun]“, which he explains puts her in the line of those other great consorts who traced their descent from Ahmose-Nefertari. This links both sisters to the cult of Amun, which he tells us could obviously not have been openly proclaimed at Amarna.

Yet we must be very careful with this link between Nefertiti and Amun by way of her sister’s later attachment to the cult. Haremhab considered himself to be an adamant restorer of the old religion after the Amarna period, and so just because his Chief Queen took the title of God’s Wife does not necessarily mean that Nefertiti held any real interest in that cult.

Doubtless though, Nefertiti may very well, and probably did participate in a similar manner as God’s Wife in the cult of Re-Atum. Unlike other chief queens, she is shown taking part in the daily worship, repeating the same gestures and making similar offerings as the king. Where traditionally a relationship existed between God and King, now that relationship is expanded to include the royal pair.

She in fact exhibits the same fashion as God’s Wife. From her first appearance at Karnak, she wears the same clinging robe tied with a red sash with the ends hanging in front. She also wears the short rounded hairstyle. In her case, this was exemplified by a Nubian wig, the coiffure of her earlier years, alternating with a queens tripartite wig, both secured by a diadem bearing a double uraei. Sometimes this was replaced by a a crown with double plumes and a disk, like Tiye and her later Kushite counterparts.

She dressed for appeal, and if she fulfilled a similar function as God’s wife of Amun in the Amarna religion, part of this responsibility would have been to maintain a state of perpetual arousal. However, since the Aten was intangible and abstract, this appeal must be to his son the king. Ay praises her for “joining with her beauty in propitiating the Aten with her sweet voice and her fair hands holding the sistrums”.

In fact, as the wife of the sun god’s offspring, she took on the role of Tefnut, who was the daughter and wife of Atum. After the fourth regal year, she began to wear a mortar-shaped cap that was the headgear of Tefnut in her leonine aspect of a sphinx. She was then referred to as “Tefnut herself”, at once the daughter and the wife of the sun-god. Therefore, Nefertiti played an equal role with the king who was the image of Re.

Figure 5. Queen Nefertiti (Click to enlarge figure)

Of course, as a god, no mortal could claim to be her mother, which may be the reason why Tey must content herself with the titles of “Wet-nurse” and “Governess” In fact, it may have been that she hid her parentage to conceal the fact that the progenitors of this high and mighty princess were not also equally divine.

• Nefertiti’s Disappearance

Towards the end of Akhenaten’s reign, Nefertiti disappeared from historical Egyptian records. For a number of years, scholars though that she had fallen from grace with the king, but this was actually a case of mistaken identity. It was Kiya’s name and images that were removed from monuments, and replaced by those of Meryetaten, one of Akhenaten’s daughters. It has been suggested, though there is no hard supporting evidence, that by year twelve of Akhenaten’s reign, and after bearing him a son and possibly a further daughter, Kiya became too much of a rival to Nefertiti and that it was she who caused Kiya’s disgrace.

Figure 6. Queen Nefertiti (Click to enlarge figure)

It is possible that Nefertiti disappearance a number of years after that of Kiya’s simply meant that she died around the age of thirty, though there are controversies on this matter as well. It may not be simple coincidence that, shortly after Nefertiti’s disappearance from the archaeological record, Akhenaten took on a co-regent with whom he shared the throne of Egypt. This co-regent has been a matter of considerable speculation and controversy, with a whole range of theories. One such theory puts forward the idea that the co-regent was none other than Nefertiti herself in a new guise as a female king following the lead of women such as Sobkneferu and Hatshepsut. Another theory is that there were actually two co-regents, consisting of a male son named Smenkhkare, and Nefertiti under the name Neferneferuaten, both of whom adopted the prenomen, Ankhkheperure. Undoubtedly, like her husband who was originally named Amenhotep, she too took the new name, Neferneferuaten to honor the Aten (Neferneferuaten can be translated as “The Aten is radiant of radiance [because] the beautiful one is come” or “Perfect One of the Aten’s Perfection”). Indeed, she may have even changed her name prior to her husband doing so, but rather this means she also served as co-regent is questionable.

Some scholars are considerably adamant about Nefertiti assuming the role of co-regent, and even serving as king for a short time after the death of Akhenaten. One such individual is Jacobus Van Dijk, responsible for the Amarna section of the Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. He believes that Nefertiti indeed became co-regent with her husband, and that her role as queen consort was taken over by her eldest daughter, Meryetaten (Meritaten). If this is true, then Nefertiti may have even taken up residence in Thebes, as evidenced by a graffito dated to year three in the reign of Neferneferuaten mentioning a “Mansion of Ankhkheperure”. If so, there could have been an attempt made at reconciliation with the old cults. He also suggests that Smenkhkare might have also been Nefertiti, ruling after the death of her husband, with her own daughter acting in a ceremonial role of “Great Royal Wife”.

Figure 7. Queen Nefertiti (Click to enlarge figure)

However, other scholars are equally adamant against Nefertiti ever having been a co-regent or ruling after her husband’s death. In his book, Akhenaten: King of Egypt, Cyril Aldred references a funerary objected called a shawabti. On it was inscribed:

“The Heiress, high and mighty in the palace, one trusted [of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt (Neferkheperure, Wa'enre), the son of Re (Akhenaten), Great in] his Lifetime, the Chief Wife of the King (Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti), Living for Ever and Ever.”

Aldred claims that this shawabti, according to the above inscription, can only belong to Nefertiti, and not, as some scholars argue, a donation by her to Akhenaten’s burial. Presumably, this object was made after the queen’s death as it was the custom during this period to make such objects during the embalming process.

Aldred also maintains that is was the custom in orthodox funerary benedictions to follow the name of the deceased with maet kheru (justified). Akhenaten rejected this practice as part of his new religion, but even so, two of his own shawabti were nevertheless inscribed with phrase after his own death. However, even though the phrase returns to favor immediately after Akhenaten’s death, it is absent from Nefertiti’s shawabti, evidencing her death during his reign.

He also notes that the shawabti represents her as a queen regnant, and not as a co-regent in male attire. Though this single piece of evidence seems somewhat scanty, he believes that Nefertiti died during year 14 of Akhenanten’s reign.

If he is indeed correct that Nefertiti died during the reign of her husband, his dating is probably correct. Nefertiti is depicted on a number of reliefs including that of her second daughter’s burial, who is believed to have died during the thirteenth year of Akhenanten’s reign. However, that is the last that we see of the queen. This is also about the time (year 14) that dockets for delivery of wine from the estate of Nefertiti also cease, so the presumption by Aldred is that Nefertiti must have died sometime very near Akhenaten’s 14th year as king.

• Recent Controversy

Nefertiti is perhaps best remembered for the painted limestone bust depicting her. Many consider it one of the greatest works of art of the pre-modern world.

Sometimes known as the Berlin bust, it was found in the workshop of the famed sculptor Thutmose. This bust depicts her with full lips enhanced by a bold red. Although the crystal inlay is missing from her left eye, both eyelids and brows are outlined in black. Her graceful elongated neck balances the tall, flat-top crown which adorns her sleek head. The vibrant colors of the her necklace and crown contrast the yellow-brown of her smooth skin. While everything is sculpted to perfection, the one flaw of the piece is a broken left ear. Because this remarkable sculpture is still in existence, it is no wonder why Nefertiti remains ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in the World.’

Figure 8. Queen Nefertiti (Click to enlarge figure)

However, the bust plays a part in one recent controversy. For more than eight decades, the serenely beautiful likeness of Queen Nefertiti’s head has been the most celebrated exhibit in Berlin’s Egyptian Museum, attracting thousands of visitors and resisting all attempts at repatriation.

But a conceptual artwork involving the 3,300-year-old limestone bust and the body of a scantily clad woman has provoked outrage in the queen’s homeland and the accusation that Nefertiti is no longer safe in Germany.

The artwork is the brainchild of a Hungarian duo called Little Warsaw, and involved lowering the head of Nefertiti on to the headless bronze statue of a woman wearing a tight-fitting transparent robe.

This angered a number of officials in Egypt for several reasons. First of all, it must be remembered that Egypt is a rather conservative society and the attachment of Nefertiti’s head to an almost nude statue was seen as an affront to Egyptian sensibilities. However, it was also pointed out by some Egyptian Egyptologists that such a display might give rise to some damage to the bust.

Irregardless, this controversy is probably short lived. The display apparently only lasted for a few hours and so the controversy has largely been mitigated at this point.

A recent, more enduring controversy surrounding Nefertiti is the possible discovery of her mummy, or at least the new identification of a previously known mummy. Soon after the incident involving Nefertiti’s bust, Joanne Fletcher, a noted mummification expert from the University of York in England, announced that she and her team may have identified the actual mummy of the queen.

Back in 1898, the French Egyptologist Victor Loret excavated the tomb of Amenhotep II on the Theban necropolis and came upon a remarkable find. This was the first tomb ever opened in which the Pharaoh was still in his original resting place, and, moreover, eleven other mummies were also discovered in a sealed chamber in the tomb. All but three of these mummies, due to their critical state of preservation, were transferred to the Egyptian Antiquities Museum in Cairo.

Figure 9. Queen Nefertiti (Click to enlarge figure)

One of the three mummies that were left behind became known among Egyptologists as the “Younger Lady” and since then Egyptologists have swayed between believing this corpse to be either Nefertiti or Princess Sitamun, a daughter of Amenhotep III. Fletcher was drawn to the tomb during an expedition in June 2002 after identifying a Nubian style wig worn by royal women during Akhenaten’s reign. She also pointed to other clues that suggest that this mummy might indeed be Nefertiti, such as a doubled- pierced ear lobe, which she claims was a rare fashion statement in Ancient Egypt; a shaven head; and the clear impression of the tight-fitting brow-band worn by royalty. “Think of the tight-fitting, tall blue crown worn by Nefertiti, something that would have required a shaven head to fit properly,” said Fletcher.

“There is a puzzle,” she conceded, and explained that in 1907, when Egyptologist Grafton Elliot Smith first examined the three mummies, he reported that the Younger Lady was lacking a right arm. Nearby, however, he had found a detached right forearm, bent at the elbow and with clenched fingers. She said that the mummy had deteriorated badly; that the skull was pierced with a large hole, and the chest hacked away. Worse still, the face, which would otherwise have been excellently preserved, had been cruelly mutilated, the mouth and cheek no more than a gaping hole. Further examination using cutting- edge Canon digital X-ray machinery, the team spotted jewelry within the smashed chest cavity of the mummy. They also noticed a woman’s severed arm beneath the remaining wrappings. The arm was bent at the elbow in Pharaonic style with its fingers still clutching a long-vanished royal scepter.

Figure 10. Queen Nefertiti (Click to enlarge figure)

Following Discovery Channel’s coverage of the events, the identification of the Younger Lady’s mummy as Nefertiti immediately attracted an eager audience and made headlines around the world. But Egyptologists are not so convinced. In fact, they are divided into two schools of thought. Salima Ikram, author of The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for Eternity, sees the identification as “interesting” and one that will doubtless cause endless speculation.

Figure 11. ? The mummy of Queen Nefertiti (Click to enlarge figure)

Others express doubt that the remains are those of the legendary queen of beauty. Egyptologist Susan James, who trained at Cambridge University and who spent a long time studying the three mummies, told Discovery Channel, who financed the expedition, ” What we know about mummy 61072 would indicate that it is one of the young females of the late 18th dynasty, very probably a member of the royal family. However, physical evidence known and published prior to this expedition indicates the unlikelihood of this being the mummy of Nefertiti. Without any comparative DNA studies, statements of certainty are wishful thinking.”

For his part, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Zahi Hawass totally refutes the idea, and describes it as “pure fiction”. He accuses Fletcher of lacking in experience, as “a new PhD recipient”, and that Fletcher’s theory was not based on facts or solid evidence, “only on facial resemblance between the mummy and Nefertiti’s bust, and on artistic representations of the Amarna period in which the queen lived”.

Figure 12. ? The mummy of Queen Nefertiti (Click to enlarge figure)

Hawass asserted, moreover, that the physical resemblance is not significant, “because all the statues of the Amarna era have the same characteristics. Amarna art was idealistic and not realistic,” he said, and pointed out that in the Egyptian Museum, there were five of six mummies with the same characteristics. Mamdouh El-Damati, director of the Egyptian Museum, mentioned that this theory was not new, this being the second time that a claim to have discovered Nefertiti’s mummy within this group of mummies had been made.

So controversy swirls around Nefertiti as surely as it always has, and probably always might. At best, perhaps someday we may know more about this intriguing queen, but until then we can only make guesses about her life, as well as her remains.

Video 2. ? The mummy of Queen Nefertiti

---

References

Title	Author	Date	Publisher	Reference Number
Akhenaten: King of Egypt	Aldred, Cyril	1988	Thames and Hudson Ltd	ISBN 0-500-27621-8
Chronicle of the Pharaohs (The Reign-By-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt)	Clayton, Peter A.	1994	Thames and Hudson Ltd	ISBN 0-500-05074-0
History of Ancient Egypt, A	Grimal, Nicolas	1988	Blackwell	None Stated
Monarchs of the Nile	Dodson, Aidan	1995	Rubicon Press	ISBN 0-948695-20-x
Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, The	Shaw, Ian	2000	Oxford University Press	ISBN 0-19-815034-2

Figure 4. Tutankhamen mummy (Click to magnify figure)

The sarcophagus was four guilded wooden shrines, one inside the other, within which lay the stone sarcophagus, three mummiform coffins, the inner one being solid gold, and then the mummy. Haste can be seen in the reliefs and the sarcophagus, due to the fact that Tutankhamun died at only 19 years of age following a brief reign. Though extremely impressive to the modern world, the treasures of Tutankhamun must have paled when compared to the tombs of the great Pharaohs that ruled for many years during Egypt’s golden age.

The tomb is much smaller than, any of the other kings tombs, with plain walls, until you reach the burial chamber. It took almost a decade of meticulous and painstaking work to empty the tomb of Tutankhamen. Around 3500 individual items were recovered.

Tutankhamen is the only pharaoh, in the valley of the kings, still to have his mummy in its original burial location.

Discovered resting on a sled dressed in silver in, the antechamber of the tomb of Tutankhamun, this wooden shrine is covered in gold leaf applied to a layer of stucco. Its form, with the roof sloping down from front to rear and the projecting cornice at the top of the walls, recalls the ancient chapels of Upper Egypt.

 A double door opens on one of the short sides and is closed with two ebony latches running through gold rings. A cord would once have passed through another two and been fastened with a clay seal. Inside the shrine there is a gilded wooden support for a statue, which was probably in solid gold and removed by grave robbers. The base still carries the marks of the feet while the name of Tutankhamun is inscribed on the dorsal pillar. On the floor lay the remains of a pectoral of which fragments have been found scattered elsewhere in the tomb.

The roof of the shrine is decorated with a winged solar disc at the front and twelve images of the vulture goddess Nekhbet with outspread wings protecting the cartouches of the sovereign and his wife. Two winged serpents with long, sinuous bodies are depicted on the sides of the roof and hold in front of them the shen hieroglyph, symbolizing eternity. The lintel of the door also features a winged solar disc while the cornice above is incised with a continuous series of vertical lines.

The external walls and the doors are subdivided into panels framed by hieroglyphic inscriptions with scenes showing Tutankhamun and his wife in various aspects of married life, a theme that recalls the scenes of the Amarna Period. However, it is not only the contents of the various scenes that recall the art of Akhenaten, but also their style characterized by the fineness, grace, and sophistication of the modeling.

The couple, adorned with jewels and dressed in finely pleated, adherent clothing, appear in various poses that reveal their reciprocal affection and a sense of absolute peace and serenity. The left wall is divided into four panels. In the bottom left Ankhesenamun is crouching before the seated Tutankhamun and is receiving a liquid poured by her husband into her hands from a small ampoule.

In the other scenes Tutankhamun, always sitting on his throne, is portrayed receiving various from his wife. On the right-hand wall, divided into two registers, Tutankhamun is seen hunting in a swamp, again in the company of the queen. The rear wall and the doors, both inside and out, are decorated with scenes in which Ankhesenamun is making offerings in the presence of her husband.

The entire decorative scheme of the shrine has strong symbolic connotations associated with the religious and political spheres. The intimate ties between the pharaoh and his bride represent the serene relationship between god and man. For this reason it is almost always the queen who is the active figure, embodying the concept of humanity paying homage to the celestial being personified by Tutankhamun. The hunting scene is to be interpreted as a symbolic episode referring to the pharaoh’s role in the maintenance of the cosmic order and his constant fight against chaos (symbolized by the birds in the swamp).

Thanks to the images of the king identified as a god, the sovereign¹s shrine thus becomes a reproduction of a shrine dedicated to the cult of a divinity.

 These two statues were discovered in the antechamber of the royal tomb, facing each other on either side of the sealed entrance to the burial chamber. At the time of their discovery traces of the linen bandages in which they had been wrapped were found, along with two bundles of olive and persea branches placed as offerings, one on the floor, the other still propped against the wall.

The statues, of refined craftsmanship and striking in both their life-size dimensions and the black finish of the skin, are testimony to the skill of the artist who has succeeded in investing their features with a sense of the almost supernatural power they wielded as guardians of the burial chamber. Rather than being designed to frighten eventual intruders, the black skin tone was a reference to the earth and thus, given that these are ka images of the sovereign, emphasizes indestructibility of the creative nature of the king, evoking the aspects of rebirth and cyclical resurrection of Osiris.

The two statues differ only in the type of head covering they are wearing (one a khat head-cloth, the other a nemes) and the inscriptions on their skirts. The king is portrayed in a striding pose, a mace gripped in his right hand and a long staff with a papyrus stem in his left hand. A gilded bronze asp adorns his forehead while the eyes are inlaid and outlined with gilded bronze, as are the eyebrows. A gilded usekh necklace and a pectoral are worn on the chest. The pleated skirt is fastened on the hips with a belt inscribed at the rear and on the buckle with the coronation name of the king Nebkbeperura.

The protruding frontal section of the skirt of the statue with the khat head-cloth carries the vertical inscription “The perfect god, rich in glory, a sovereign to be proud of, the regal ka of Horakhty, the Osiris, and Lord of the Two Lands, Nebkbeperura, made just.” The inscription on the statue wearing the nemes records the birth name of the pharaoh, “Tutankhamun, living forever as Ra each day”. Both statues are wearing anklets and bracelets of gilded bronze. Although made some years after the end of the Amarna Period, these sculptures clearly show the influence of the art of Akhenaten with their prominent bellies, slim legs and pierced ears.

Thirty-four wooden statues were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, seven portraying the pharaoh and the other twenty-seven depicting various divinities from the Egyptian pantheon. The majority of the statues had been placed in the treasure chamber inside black wooden cabinets mounted on sleds and set along the south wall. Two of these pieces, placed together in the same cabinet, are identical and depict the pharaoh stepping on the back of a panther.

The image of the sovereign is sculpted with great realism in a very hard wood, stuccoed and covered with a thin layer of gold leaf. Tutankhamun is gripping a long staff in one hand and the flail symbolizing his power in the other. He is wearing the crown of Upper Egypt, adorned with the royal asp on the forehead. The body of the snake is painted black.

The modeling of the head and body reflects the influence of Amarna-era art in the emphasis and exaggeration of certain physical details such as the long, forward-tilted neck, the protruding breasts, the swollen belly, and the low waist. It is therefore legitimate to suggest that the statue may have been made for Akhenaten, a hypothesis supported by the fact that when it was discovered it was wrapped in linen cloths that carried inscriptions datable to the third year of this pharaoh’s reign.

With its serene, youthful expression, the face features eyes inlaid with obsidian, bronze, and glass. The sovereign is bare chested but is wearing a large collar that covers his breast and shoulders and terminates with a droplet motif. The pharaoh’s clothing consists of a long, tightly-fitting loincloth, knotted at the front and lined with thin incisions imitating the folds in the cloth, and sandals on his feet.

The statue stands on a black-painted, rectangular pedestal fixed to the arching back of a panther, also black. The animal is portrayed with great realism, pacing slowly and furtively. Its body has a sinuous, elegant profile and the head, with gilded ears and muzzle, is slightly dipped. A second black-painted pedestal constitutes the base for the entire sculptural group.

The composition is not intended to evoke a hunting scene, since the sovereign is not bearing arms, but rather it has a symbolic value. The panther might constitute an allegorical image of the sky, which in the Predynastic era was depicted as a feline that swallowed the sun in the evening before regenerating it in rejuvenated form the following morning. With the extensive gilding of his body the sovereign could represent the sun god. According to another interpretation supported by a pictorial scene in the tomb of Sety I, the sovereign whose gilding identifies him as the sun god, is located in the under world. The panther is in fact painted black like all the inhabitants of the under world.

The Treasure Chamber in the tomb of Tutankhamun contained twenty-two black-painted wooden caskets, each of which contained one or more wooden statues portraying the pharaoh or a number of deities from the Egyptian pantheon. All of the figures contained in the black tabernacles are fixed to a rectangular base and at the moment of their discovery were wrapped in a linen cloth datable to the third year of the reign of Akhenaten.

Two twin statues in gilded wood depict Tutankhamun standing upright on a papyrus raft and engaged in a mythical hunt for the hippopotamus symbolizing evil. The pharaoh is represented as the incarnation of Horus, the god that according to the legend fought in the swamps against the evil Seth who was transformed into a hippopotamus and was finally defeated.

Tutankhamun, like the victorious god, has the task of fighting against evil and preserving the universal order of which he is the sole guarantor. The sovereign, seen in a striding pose taking a long, solemn step appears realistically to be concentrating on launching a long spear against his enemy. He is wearing the crown of Lower Egypt decorated at the front with a representation of the royal cobra above his youthful, refined facial features.

His eyes are inlaid. An usekh necklace is depicted around his neck, incised into the wood in imitation of the rows of beads of which it is composed. The soft modeling of the naked torso with the slightly protruding pectoral muscles, the swollen belly and the low hips are clear indications of the influence that was still exercised over the art of this era by the Amarna Period.

The arms are separate from the body and emphasize the dynamism of the hunting pharaoh: in his right hand he is gripping the long spear whilst in his left he is holding a rope in rolled bronze with which to capture the defeated animal. Tutankhamun is wearing a pleated skirt, knotted at the front from where the cloth falls to various levels and opens in a fan-like fashion.

The striding pose of the statue means that the narrow pleats of the cloth adhere tightly to the thighs, allowing the underlying musculature to appear. The pharaoh is wearing precious thong sandals that were part of the his official costume. The front foot is flat on the ground while the rear is poised on the tips of the toes in realistic imitation of the pose of one taking aim prior to throwing a spear.

The slim vessel on which the sovereign is floating is typical of the simple “Its made of papyrus used by the Ancient Egyptians. It is painted in green, with the prow and the stern taking the form of sophisticated images of papyrus flowers with gilded petals. The raft is attached to a rectangular pedestal painted in black that supports the entire sculptural composition.

This elegant and precious game table composed of interlocking pieces is the largest of the four discovered in the annex of the tomb of Tutankhamun. The piece takes-the form of a box resting on a base supported by four leonine legs, partially covered with gold leaf and fixed to a sled. The upper surface is veneered with ivory and is subdivided by means of strips of wood into thirty squares, five of which carry inscriptions. The game of senet was played on this board. There are the same number of squares in ivory on the lower surface of the box, three of which are inscribed. This side was used for the game tjau.

On one of the short sides there is an aperture in which a drawer (discovered empty elsewhere in the tomb) would have been inserted. This would once have contained the pieces used for the games which were probably taken away by thieves as they would have been made of precious materials.

The four sides of the box feature yellow hieroglyphic inscriptions with augural phrases in favor of Tutankhamun, to whom the board belonged. The pharaoh’s names and complete titles are recorded. The rules of the two games played on this board are unknown, but it is probable that the two competing players had to move their pieces after throwing a stick or a form of die.

Senet was very popular in Egypt from the remotest times. Boards were frequently placed in tombs to allow the deceased to continue playing after their deaths. It had magical-religious values and in the tomb paintings and in the Book of the Dead the deceased appears seated alone, intent on playing an imaginary adversary in a scene symbolizing his successful passage to the spiritual world.

Numerous caskets and chairs were piled hazardly as a result of the violations of the tomb in the western corner of the antechamber. The containers were almost all rectangular in shape, with lids that were flat, featured triangular pediments, or were vaulted. With the exception of certain examples in alabaster and cane, the majority were made of wood, with precious inlays in ivory, gold leaf, turquoise, or vitreous paste.

Frequently a hieratic or hieroglyphic inscription indicated their function, followed by the name of the sovereign and the ritual verse in which the sovereign was augured “life, strength and health.” This casket takes the form of a rectangular parallelepiped, supported on simple square feet and closed with a vaulted lid in imitation of the primitive shrines of Upper Egypt.

The two large button-like knobs in blue faience were used to fasten the casket by means of ties and are placed on the curved part of the lid and in the center of the upper part of the front side.

The decoration is of a sophisticated elegance, thanks above all to the prevalent two-tone color scheme, interrupted only by the checkered frame around the panels, which create an attractive contrast with the elegant turquoise faience inlays on the gilded surfaces.

On the long side panels there are a series of five royal cartouches set between asps surmounted by the solar disc; the birth name of the sovereign, Tutankhamun, alternates with his coronation name Nebhheperura. The two cartouches are also found on the front and rear short sides, placed centrally and flanked by the protective figures of the genii of the millions of years arranged symmetrically either side.

This throne was produced in the early years of the reign of Tutankhamun, prior to the religious counter reformation that marked the definitive end of the Amarna Period.

The grace of the forms combines well with the richness of the decoration and the luminosity of the colors, giving rise to a composition of exquisite craftsmanship. The scene depicts the sovereign relaxing on his throne with his feet resting on a low stool with cushions. He is wearing a short wig surmounted by a composite crown and the typical pleated robe of the era, which left the prominent stomach uncovered, another feature typical of the Amarna period.

The arms of the throne are in the form of two winged and crowned serpents holding the cartouche of Tutankhamun in front of them. The legs, which were linked at the front and rear with a heraldic motif symbolizing the union of southern and northern Egypt, terminate in leonine paws. Two lions’ heads also emerge from the front section of the throne. The rear of the backrest is decorated with a frieze of asps.