Nefertiti -- The Ancient Egyptian Queen

Nefertiti was an ancient Egyptian queen of the 18th Dynasty, best known as the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten in the 14th century BCE.

She and Akhenaten led a major religious shift by promoting the worship of Aten, the sun disc, above all other gods, helping to create what is known as the Amarna period. Her name is often translated as “the beautiful woman has come,” and she appears in art as a powerful royal figure, sometimes shown in the same scale and poses as the king. Some scholars think she may have briefly ruled as a pharaoh under the throne name Neferneferuaten after Akhenaten’s death, though this is still debated.

Today she is world‑famous because of the painted limestone bust found in the sculptor Thutmose’s workshop at Amarna, now in the Neues Museum in Berlin, which has become an icon of ancient Egyptian beauty and art.