The Bust of Queen Nefertiti

 

Who is Nefertiti ??
Little was known about the woman whose beauty it celebrated. And while Nefertiti's origins as well as her demise remain shrouded in mystery, Egyptologists are beginning to piece together more about her life. 
Her name, meaning "the beautiful (or perfect) woman has come," prompts some scholars to think that Nefertiti traveled to Egypt from a foreign land. Others theorize she was an Egyptian royal by birth. Still others think it unlikely that she was of royal blood, but that her father was a high government official, a man named Kheperkheprure Ay, who went on to become pharaoh after Tutankhamen (and, incidentally, may have had a hand in the boy king's death!).
Nefertiti and Akhenaton had six daughters. Their family affection was clear enough from the family portraits. Nefertiti was the stepmother of Tutankhamen. Some Egyptian scholars theorize that around year twelve of Akhenaten's reign Nefertiti may well have become his co-regent, and immediately after his death became a pharaoh in her own right, ruling alone for a short time.
Akhenaton decided to go against tradition and convert Egypt to monotheism to worship the one God Aton (or Aten) the Sun Disc . Nefertiti was a great supporter of Akhenaten to spread the new religion. They had closed the other Gods' temples and moved the capital city to a remote part of the land Amarna.  Atenism was largely irrelevant to the common people and the temples to other gods were closed. Workers were sent to erase the name of Amun wherever it appeared. Akhenaten appeared to lose interest and authority in the country at large.
By the 14th year of Akhenaton's reign Nefertiti had disappeared from view. There is no record of her death & her mummy has not been found. Some historians believe that Nefertiti changed her name to Smenkhkare, adopted the guise of a man and ruled as co-regent with her husband.  The majority view is that Nefertiti died of natural causes (possibly the plague).


Nefertiti bust
Nefertiti's bust was rediscovered by a local workman employed by the German excavator Ludwig Borchardt on 6th of December 1912. The bust shows Nefertiti in a flat-topped blue crown decorated with golden ribbons, whose red, blue and green inlays reflected the colors in her bead collar. There is no hair visible under the crown, and it seems that Nefertiti has shaved her head. The queen's starkly symmetrical face has a pink-brown skin, deeper red-brown smiling lips, and dedicatedly arched black eyebrows. The tips of her ears and the top edge of her crown have been slightly damaged, and the uraeus on the front of the crown has snapped off.

Nefertiti's kohl-rimmed right eye is inlaid with rock crystal and has a black pupil. Her left eyeball is missing and, as the socket shows no trace of glue, is unlikely to have been in place when the head as discarded. It is doubtful that the bust is simply unfinished
The bust of Nefertiti height is 47 cm and weighs around 20 kg (44 lb).it  was found among other unfinished busts by the German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt who led a team of the German Oriental company (Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft). It was shipped to Germany in 1913 where it was kept in the residence of James Simon the sponsor of the excavation and then moved to the Berlin Museum the same year but was kept a secret until finally displayed in 1924. The bust moved to several locations in Germany. It is currently displayed in the Neues Museum Berlin.
There has been intense discussions about the repatriation of the Nefertiti bust to Egypt. Ever since the unveil of the discovery of the Nefertiti bust, there have been Negotiations between the Egyptian and German governments to return the bust to Egypt as the bust was moved illegally to Germany but it has not been decided yet by the German authorities if the bust would be returned to Egypt.

 

 

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