Archaeology & History

Did Queen Nefertiti ever rule ancient Egypt ?

By T.K. Randall
January 23, 2018

Image: Bust of Queen Nefertiti
Credit: Rüdiger Stehn / CC BY-SA 2.0 (adapted) Famed for her beauty, Queen Nefertiti was propelled in to the public spotlight after a limestone and plaster sculpture of her head was discovered in 1912 by German excavator Ludwig Borchardt.

For many years, she was assumed to have held a position of great power in ancient Egypt, but how much influence did she really have over the kingdom and was she ever actually a pharaoh at all ?

Egyptologist Dr. Joyce Tyldesley certainly doesn't think so."Though most people and many Egyptologists believe Nefertiti was an unusually powerful royal woman, and possibly even a pharaoh, I believe this was not the case," she said.

"Her husband Akhenaten died around 1336 BC; Tutankhamun - who was possibly Nefertiti's son - became pharaoh in approximately 1336 BC. It has been argued that Nefertiti ruled Egypt, filling in this gap and perhaps influencing the early reign of Tutankhamen."

"But she wasn't born a royal, and for a non-royal woman to become king would have been unprecedented."

Source: Phys.org

Tags: Nefertiti, Egypt