The three portraits above represent the 18th Dynasty pharaoh with his most famous queen. The faces and clothing are modelled on contemporary artistic representations of the couple from surviving reliefs and sculptures. Akhenaten is shown wearing the blue war crown and his queen with the distinctive tall crown in which she was often depicted. The third image in the series shows Nefertiti in middle age. It is believed by some historians that after her husband's death Nefertiti ruled alone as Neferneferuaten prior to the ascension of Tutankhamun, although this theory is a matter of ongoing debate.
Akhenaten, the “heretic pharaoh”, is best known for his adoption of a monotheistic religion in the 14th century BCE. He abandoned the traditional polytheism centred on Amun as supreme deity in favour of a new religion based on worship of the Aten sun disc. In order to achieve his vision he abandoned the ancient capital of Thebes and built a new city in the desert at Amarna. The old temples of Amun and other gods were abandoned as the people were forced to seek salvation through worship of the king and queen who in turn worshipped the Aten. This shift of power from the priesthood to the royal cult proved to be short-lived. After his reign, the priesthood re-established the ancient religion and Amarna returned to the sand. Akhenaten’s name was erased from public monuments and his young son Tutank-Aten retained the throne by returning Egypt to the old religion and adopting the name Tutank-Amun.
Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife, was Akhenaten’s first and foremost queen appearing to share equal prominence in the rites of the new religion. Nefertiti's name can be translated as "The Beautiful Woman has Come", later changing to Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti during the cult of the Aten. On many reliefs she is depicted at the same scale as her husband and enjoying an equality of power hitherto unknown among Egyptian queens. After Akhenaten’s rule was over she may have ruled as full pharaoh in her own right; reliefs show her smiting enemies in the traditiional manner of an Egytpian pharaoh. She was originally represented in the same style as her husband but was later shown with more individualised features as on the famous bust in Berlin (fig. B). This along with other representations of the royal couple was discovered in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose. The artist seems to have been instrumental in developing the iconic imagery of the couple by producing prototypes of them to be distributed to other artists.
Akhenaten was the younger son of Amenhotep III and known as Amenhotep IV before he adopted his new title five years into his reign. He and Nefertiti were represented on public monuments in a unique anatomical style with elongated features including wide hips and narrow waists and androgynous appearance. They were represented together in intimate scenes with their children in an abrupt break with traditional austere portraits of rulers. A mummy found in tomb KV55 has been identified by DNA as the father of Tutankamun and although much damaged the skull appears to be long with a prominent chin. The stylised forms of Akhenaten’s imagery appear, therefore, to have been an exaggeration of his natural features. Other scupltures show him with less pronounced facial distortions (fig. A).
Nefertiti’s ancestry is not recorded and her mummy has yet to be conclusively identified. She is sometimes regarded as having been a foreign-born princess but the similarity of their facial proportions makes it likely that she was a sister or first cousin of Akhenaten. A CT scan of the Berlin bust in 2009 revealed an earlier sculpture underneath the smooth plaster exterior. It indicated that the artist exaggerated the cheekbones and thickness of the eyelids and smoothed over creases around her mouth and the ridge of her nose. This accords with another unfinished head found at the same workshop and is taken into account in the above portrait.The materials used in the Berlin bust were authentic to the period, which, together with the process of construction proved the bust to be genuine. Many other contemporary sculptures and reliefs of the queen from Amarna and Karnak also share the same physiognomy.
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