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Nefertiti's name in hieroglyphs: how to read it and where to see it
18 October 2026
Nefertiti's name in hieroglyphs starts with the heart and windpipe, the sign for "beautiful". In a short spelling it takes five signs: heart and windpipe, bread loaf, reed leaf, walking legs and a second loaf. Read nfrt-iy.ti, said "nefer-tee-tee", it means "The beautiful one has come".
She was the Great Royal Wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled from about 1352 to 1336 BC. Her name sits in a cartouche of its own on the reliefs of his reign, usually right beside his and below the two cartouches of his god, the Aten.
Five signs spell Nefertiti
The first word is nfrt, "the beautiful one". The heart and windpipe (F35) writes nfr, "good, beautiful", and the bread loaf (X1) adds t, the ending that makes the word feminine: a beautiful woman.
The second word is the verb iy, "to come". The reed leaf (M17) gives its i, and the walking legs (D54) are silent, a determinative that tells the reader the word is about movement. The last loaf (X1) is the t of the ending -ti, which turns the verb into "she has come". Its final i is not written in this spelling.
Monuments vary. Scribes often fused the reed and the legs into one sign (M18), and many cartouches end with two short strokes (Z4) for the ending's i and a seated woman (B1), the determinative for a woman's name.
She added the name Neferneferuaten
Early in the reign, by about the fifth year, when Amenhotep IV became Akhenaten, the queen had added a name in honour of his god: Neferneferuaten, nfr-nfrw-itn, "Beautiful are the beauties of the Aten". From then on her cartouche usually reads Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti.
In the oval the god comes first. The reed leaf, the loaf, the water ripple (N35) and the sun disc (N5) spell itn, Aten, at the top out of respect, though the word is read last. Then the heart and windpipe follows again and again: once for nfr, "beautiful", then three times for nfrw, "beauties", since writing a sign three times was one way to show a plural. One more heart and windpipe begins Nefertiti.
The queen stands under the Aten's rays
Nefertiti appears on as many monuments as her husband, a rare thing for a queen. On the reliefs of Amarna, the new capital Akhenaten built for the Aten, she stands beside the king making offerings, and the sun disc above them sends down rays that end in small hands. Some of the hands hold an ankh (S34), the sign of life, to the faces of the king and queen. They had six daughters, and the older girls often sit on their parents' laps or stand beside them.
Temple blocks of the reign show her doing something queens almost never did: striking down a foreign enemy with a raised mace, a pose kept for kings. In many scenes she wears a tall flat-topped crown that became her own. The famous bust is recognised as her by that crown.
She was still queen in year 16
For a long time scholars thought Nefertiti died or fell from favour around year 12 or 14 of the reign, because her name seemed to vanish after it. In 2012 Egyptologists announced a text painted in red ochre in a limestone quarry at Dayr Abu Hinnis, about 10 km north of Amarna. Dated to year 16, it names her "Great King's Wife, his beloved, mistress of the two lands, Neferneferuaten Nefertiti". She was still queen in the last years of Akhenaten.
What happened next is debated. A ruler called Neferneferuaten reigned briefly at the end of the Amarna period, with the epithet "effective for her husband". Some Egyptologists take this ruler to be Nefertiti. Others think of her daughter Meritaten.
Her tomb and mummy have not been identified. One of the two women buried in tomb KV21 in the Valley of the Kings has been put forward, but DNA tests were inconclusive. In 2015 Nicholas Reeves argued that her burial lay behind the painted walls of Tutankhamun's tomb. A radar survey by a team from Turin in 2018 found no hidden chambers.
Berlin's Amarna rooms hold her cartouches
Berlin is the place to start. The painted bust stands in the North Dome Room of the Neues Museum, found in 1912 by Ludwig Borchardt's team in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose at Amarna. It carries no inscription at all, so her name has to be read elsewhere in the Amarna rooms.
A small limestone house altar in the same rooms shows Akhenaten and Nefertiti with three daughters under the Aten's rays, with cartouches between the rays. Look for the oval with the long run of nefer signs, close to the king's two and the god's two.
Her short cartouche takes five shapes
Draw the oval, then the heart and windpipe at the top: a rounded heart with a long windpipe rising from it and a short crossbar. Under it go the half-round loaf, the tall reed leaf and the walking legs, striding the same way the other signs face, and a last loaf at the bottom.
Questions
How do you pronounce Nefertiti?
Most people say "nef-er-TEE-tee". That is a modern convention, since hieroglyphs left out vowels. From later forms of the words, some scholars think it sounded more like "Naftita".
Was Nefertiti Tutankhamun's mother?
Probably not, though it cannot be ruled out. A 2010 DNA study found that his mother was the mummy called the Younger Lady, a full sister of his father, and Nefertiti is not known to have been a king's daughter. A few scholars still argue that the Younger Lady is Nefertiti.
Who was Akhenaten's wife?
His Great Royal Wife, the chief queen, was Nefertiti, from early in the reign to at least its 16th year. He also had a secondary wife called Kiya, and other women of the court.
Glossary
- ankh
- The sign of life, ꜥnḫ, a cross with a loop on top. Gods hold it out to kings in temple scenes.
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- determinative
- A sign at the end of a word that is not read aloud. It shows what kind of thing the word means, such as a seated man for men and their jobs.
- epithet
- A title or phrase added to a name, such as "beloved of Amun" after a king's name or "true of voice" after the name of someone who has died.
- hieroglyphs
- The picture signs of ancient Egyptian writing, used from about 3200 BC to AD 394. A sign can stand for sounds, for a whole word, or for the kind of thing a word means.
- mummy
- A body dried and wrapped in linen so that it would last. Egyptians believed the spirit needed it in the afterlife.
- pharaoh
- The king of Egypt. The word comes from per-aa, "great house", a name for the palace that came to mean the king himself in the New Kingdom.
- relief
- A carving on a flat surface. In raised relief the background is cut away. In sunk relief the figures are cut into the stone.
- scribe
- A person trained to read and write, who kept accounts, wrote letters and copied texts. Few Egyptians could write, and scribes were well respected.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
- Valley of the Kings
- A desert valley on the west bank at Luxor where the New Kingdom kings were buried in tombs cut into the rock, Tutankhamun among them.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Neues Museum, Berlin museum
- Bust of Nefertiti object
Sources
More to read
- Narmer in hieroglyphs: the first pharaoh's name and where to see it Narmer's name in hieroglyphics: the catfish and chisel of the first pharaoh's serekh, the Menes question, and the objects that carry his name.
- Usermaatre: the throne name of Ramesses II and the kings who copied it User maat ra, Usermaatre: 'the justice of Ra is strong', the throne name of Ramesses II, read sign by sign, and the later kings who took it.
- Queen Tiye in hieroglyphs: her name and where to see it Queen Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten: her name read sign by sign, the marriage scarab, her portraits and where to see them.