Neferneferaten-Nefertiti

Nefertiti first appears on the scene when she becomes the Great Royal Wife of Akhenaten. Scholars still debate her origins, some believing that she was a princess from another land. Those believing her to be of Egyptian origin are also divided. One camp claims her as the daughter of Aye and Tiy, and the other claims her as the oldest daughter of Amenhotep III and another wife besides Tiy, possibly Sitamun. Whatever her parentage, Nefertiti was married to Akhenaten and gave birth to six daughters. It is possible that she also had sons, although no record of this has been found.

It was a practice in Egyptian art not to portray the male heirs as children; therefore, it is possible that Tutankhaten was her son. Nefertiti moved with her husband to Akhenaten and is shown there participating in all the religious ceremonies. It was only through the combined royal pair that the god Aten's full blessing could be bestowed. Nefertiti is displayed with a prominence that other Egyptian queens were not. Her name is enclosed in a royal cartouche, and there are in fact more statues and drawings of her than of Akhenaten. Some have even claimed that it was Nefertiti, not Akhenaten, who instigated the monotheistic religion of Aten.

It is around Year 15 that Nefertiti mysteriously disappears from view. It could be that she died, although no indication of this exists to this date. Some scholars think that she was banished for some reason, and lived the rest of her years in the northern palace, raising Tutankhaten. Reasons given for the banishment are two-fold. One, it could be that she disapproved of the slow return to the worship of Amun, which was taking place at the time, with Smenkhkare becoming co-regent and moving back to Thebes to reopen some temples. Or, she actually became a pharaoh, taking the name of Smenkhkare and ruling beside Akhenaten until his death. There is no concrete evidence for any of these theories to be taken as fact, and so we are left with Nefertiti disappearing from the story of Amarna.