Nefertiti lived during one of the most interesting and dangerous periods in ancient Egyptian history, the Amarna Period. It was a time of new ideas and concepts, which is especially exciting when you remember that we’re talking about a millennia-old civilization that did not handle change well (to put it mildly). One of the changes of the Amarna Period was Pharaoh Akhenaten’s decree that artists should portray him and his family realistically. This says a lot about Akhenaten, since his surviving statues show him with a potbelly, an oddly shaped head, and numerous other physical characteristics that might lead some people to describe him by saying, “But he has a great personality!”
It speaks highly of Akhenaten’s character that he was willing to be immortalized in art warts and all (even if he didn’t have warts). It also tells us something about Nefertiti: If the famous bust of this Egyptian queen shows us a beautiful woman, she really was a beautiful woman. Amarna Period art was honest.
I suppose it was lucky for Nefertiti that she was beautiful, since her name means “The beautiful woman has come.” Imagine having to live up to a name like that! And everyone would know, because her name was in the language used throughout Egypt. Modern names have meanings, too, but they often come from foreign or dead languages. If you’re named Hope or Brooke or Heather, everyone knows what your name means. But what about Alexandra (“man’s defender”) or Madison (“son [yes, son!] of the mighty warrior”) or Emma (“embracing everything”)?
Nefertiti was as beautiful as her name, but aside from that, we don’t know a lot about her before she became Egypt’s queen. The name of her father is known, and her stepmother, and her half sister, but what was her mother’s name? There’s further debate about her ancestry, too. Did Nefertiti come from a purely Egyptian family, or was she of foreign blood? Was she born into the nobility, or was she a commoner?
We do know that there was more to her than just her looks, because she is portrayed many times on walls and monuments acting not merely as Pharaoh’s wife but as an independent ruler, a monarch in her own right. Some evidence suggests that she might have ruled Egypt for a time when her husband could no longer do so. What’s more, it’s theorized that she didn’t rule as regent but as Pharaoh, using a male name. There is even one carving that shows her destroying the enemies of Egypt with her own hands! (All right, maybe Amarna Period artists sometimes did stretch the truth just a bit.) But whether she acted alone or with her royal husband, she challenged many powerful men who didn’t want to give up even the smallest bit of their wealth and influence. Even for a queen, that took courage.
Then … she was gone.
There are no official records of her death. Her tomb has never been found. Recent discoveries in Egypt have raised hopes that her mummy has finally been located, but this has not yet been confirmed to the point where we can say, “Yes, that’s Nefertiti, no doubt about it.”
That’s the historical Nefertiti, a flash of beauty, bravery, and wisdom who stepped out of the shadows of mystery and back again. We still don’t know where she came from or why she vanished, but we can look at the exquisitely painted image of the-beautiful-woman-has-come and let our imaginations supply those parts of her story that history still conceals.
Above all, we can remember that she was much more than just another pretty face.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nebula Award winner Esther Friesner is the author of 31 novels and over 150 short stories, including “Thunderbolt” in Random House’s Young Warriors anthology, which led to her novels about Helen of Troy, Nobody’s Princess and Nobody’s Prize. She is also the editor of seven popular anthologies. Her work has been published in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Russia, France, Poland, and Italy. She is also a published poet and a playwright and once wrote an advice column, “Ask Auntie Esther.” Her articles on fiction writing have appeared in Writer’s Market and other Writer’s Digest Books.
Besides winning two Nebula Awards in succession for Best Short Story (1995 and 1996), she was a Nebula finalist three times, as well as a Hugo finalist. She received the Skylark Award from the New England Science Fiction Association and the award for Most Promising New Fantasy Writer of 1986 from Romantic Times.
Ms. Friesner’s latest publications include the novel Temping Fate; a short-story collection, Death and the Librarian and Other Stories; and Turn the Other Chick, fifth in the popular Chicks in Chainmail series, which she created and edits.
Educated at Vassar College, receiving a BA in both Spanish and drama, she went on to receive her MA and PhD in Spanish from Yale University, where she taught for a number of years. She is married and the mother of two, harbors cats, and lives in Connecticut.