Nefertiti c. 1352–1336 BC
Queen, wife of Akhenaten
Akhenaten's Great Royal Wife, shown beside him worshipping the Aten and even striking down enemies, a scene usually kept for kings. Her painted bust, found at Amarna in 1912, is in the Neues Museum in Berlin. Some scholars think she ruled after Akhenaten under another name.
Name: Nefertiti
nfrt-iy.ti: “The beautiful one has come”
Sign by sign
- Heart and windpipe F35nfr Good, beautiful, perfect.
- Bread loaf X1t The sound t; also the feminine ending.
- Flowering reed M17i The sound i.
- Walking legs D54 Determinative for movement: to go, to come.
- Bread loaf X1t The sound t; also the feminine ending.
Names of gods (Ra, Amun, Ptah) are written first out of respect, even when they are read later. Dates are approximate; we follow Ian Shaw (ed.), The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000).