Nefertiti (Neferneferuaten Nefertiti) was a queen in Egypt in the fourteenth century BCE. Famously she was Queen consort of Pharaoh Akhenaten who was known to worship the Egyptian sun deity, Aten. British archaeologist and Egyptologist, Dr Joyce Tyldesley, The University of Manchester, joins the show to speak about her and the life she lived.
Some topics explored
- What Nefertiti’s name means
- What’s known or speculated about her family
- Her marriage to Pharaoh Akhenaten
- Nefertiti as primary Queen consort of Egypt
- Akhenaten moving the capital of Egypt from Thebes (present day Luxcor) to Amarna
- Nefertiti having six daughters, what occurred with a couple of them
- Her worship of the sun deity Aten, consistent with Akhenaten’s beliefs
- The geopolitical environment of Egypt during her life
- During Tutankhamun’s reign (successor of Akhenaten), the capital of Egypt being moved back to Luxcor
- Writings that pertain to Nefertiti
- What’s inferred about the amount of political power Nefertiti had
- What’s known about how she was as a monarch
- Theories about her later life
- The concept of smiting and a statue of Nefertiti smiting
- What’s known about if Nefertiti’s skeleton or mummy has ever been found and what’s speculated about its location
Listen to the episode
The episode is available on major podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Show Notes
- Professor Tyldesley is author of the monographs Nefertiti: Egypt’s Sun Queen (Profile Books, 1999) and Nefertiti’s Face: The Creation of an Icon (published in the U.K. by Profile Books and published in the U.S. by Harvard University Press, 2018)
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