Nefertiti
The Egyptian queen famous for her beauty
Nefertiti, translated as “the Beautiful One has Come” was the “Great Royal Wife” of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep IV, better known as Akhenaten, and lived around 1370-1330 BC.
Akhenaten is best known for instigating a religious revolution by moving away from the traditional ancient Egyptian system of many gods, polytheism, and introducing monotheism, the worship of a single god, namely the sun disc or Aten.
He moved the capital from Thebes (now Luxor) to Akhetaten (now Amarna, halfway between Luxor and Cairo) and built a brand new city there in record time.
This religious shift was badly received in Egypt and after Akhenaten’s death, all his monuments were dismantled, his statues destroyed and his name removed from all records. The traditional religious system was restored with Akhenaten’s successor, the young Tutankhamun who became world famous after the discovery of his tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 by Howard Carter.
Nefertiti had 6 daughters with Akhenaten and enjoyed unprecedented power during his reign. There is even speculation that she may have ruled as female pharaoh between Akhenaten’s death and Tutankhamun’s accession.
Nefertiti became one of the most famous women of the ancient world and an icon of feminine beauty after the discovery of her bust, a painted limestone sculpture that is believed to have been crafted around 1345 BC by the artist Thutmose, because it was found in his workshop in Amarna in 1912 by a German archaeological team led by Ludwig Borchardt. The statue is on view in the Neues Museum in Berlin, Germany.
The first row of her wide collar inspired us to create a modern day single strand necklace using the very same semi-precious stones
📷 The NY Times
