Nefertiti Research Paper

Nefertiti’s role in the Amarna period is at the centre of divisive Egyptologist debate as a result of insufficient remaining evidence due to the systematic destruction of Akhenaten’s controversial reign and archaeological bias. It is known she was Akhenaten’s Great Royal Wife for the majority of his reign, but the details become convoluted after Akhenaten’s 12th regnal year, as Nefertiti mysteriously disappears from any surviving records. It was primarily theorised that she had died, but this claim was discredited by the 2012 discovery of an inscription dated back to Akenhaten’s 16th regnal year that mentions Nefertiti. When Akhenaten died in his 17th regnal year, the kingship was seemingly passed to the mysterious Smenkhkare. Smenkhare was in one instance depicted wearing a masculine kilt but also a feminine garment tied under their breast, which indicates “the markers of masculine kingship were layered onto the feminine person, as was done with Hatshepsut” (Cooney 2020).

In the first half of the 20th century, Egyptologists were hesitant to acknowledge that Smenkhkare could be a female …show more content…
This claim was primarily substantiated by the tomb of Meryre II, as there is an inscription of Smenkhkare and Meritaten adorned with the label ‘Great Royal Wife’. However, egyptologist Kara Cooney argues that “Meritaten had been the Great Royal Wife for her father; perhaps she retained that role still, but now alongside her mother." If Nefertiti was Smenkhkare, Nefertiti could have been using her daughter Meriaten to verify her kingship, for “someone needed to occupy the feminine ritual role just as Nefertiti now needed to masculinize herself... Who more trustworthy than a royal daughter?" Cooney, a.k.a. Cooney, 2020. This theory is not unprecedented, as Hatshepsut used her daughter Nefrure in a similar

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Nefertiti Research Paper