Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt: Her Life and Afterlife

by Aidan Dodson

Egypt's sun queen magnificently revealed in a new book by renowned Egyptologist, Aidan Dodson

During the last half of the fourteenth century BC, Egypt was perhaps at the height of its prosperity. It was against this background that the "Amarna Revolution" occurred. Throughout, its instigator, King Akhenaten, had at his side his Great Wife, Nefertiti. When a painted bust of the queen found at Amarna in 1912 was first revealed to the public in the 1920s, it soon became one of the great artistic icons of the world. Nefertiti's name and face are perhaps the best known of any royal woman of ancient Egypt and one of the best recognized figures of antiquity, but her image has come in many ways to overshadow the woman herself.

Nefertiti's current world dominion as a cultural and artistic icon presents an interesting contrast with the way in which she was actively written out of history soon after her own death. This book explores what we can reconstruct of the life of the queen, tracing the way in which she and her image emerged in the wake of the first tentative decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs during the 1820s-1840s, and then took on the world over the next century and beyond.

All indications are that her final fate was a tragic one, but although every effort was made to wipe out Nefertiti's memory after her death, modern archaeology has rescued the queen-pharaoh from obscurity and set her on the road to today's international status.

Genres: History, Egyptology, Nonfiction, Middle East

184 pages, Hardcover

Published October 6, 2020

About the author

Aidan Dodson is Honorary Professor of Egyptology in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Bristol, UK, was Simpson Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo in 2013, and Chair of the Egypt Exploration Society during 2011–16. Awarded his PhD by the University of Cambridge in 1995, he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2003. He is the author of some twenty-five books, including Sethy I, King of Egypt: His Life and Afterlife (AUC Press, 2019), Rameses III, King of Egypt: His Life and Afterlife (AUC Press, 2019), Amarna Sunrise: Egypt from Golden Age to Age of Heresy (AUC Press, paperback edition, 2016), Afterglow of Empire: Egypt from the Fall of the New Kingdom to the Saite Renaissance (AUC Press, paperback edition, 2020), Poisoned Legacy: The Fall of the 19th Egyptian Dynasty (AUC Press, paperback edition, 2016), Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb, and the Egyptian Counter-Reformation (AUC Press, paperback edition, 2018), and Monarchs of the Nile (AUC Press, paperback edition, 2015). Professor Dodson has also written on naval history from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present day.

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt: Her Life and Afterlife
By Aidan Dodson
Reviewed September 11, 2021

Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt: Her Life and Afterlife is a look at one of Ancient Egypt’s most famous personalities, thanks to her famous bust—one of the great artistic icons of the world—that is housed in the Neues Museum in Berlin. It is a smallish volume when compared to some other books (184 pages), and is more along the lines of an academic treatise than a straight forward biography, and is filled with so much detail that it might make the casual reader’s head swim. But if you have a decent understanding of Pharaoh Akhenaten and the Amarna Revolution, you’ll probably not have any problems. The book follows what we know, and what we don’t know, about Nefertiti, from her birth to her death...and beyond.

So what do we know with certainty about Nefertiti? Not as much as you might think. We don’t even know where she was born, or who here parents were, although Dodson does a good job of demonstrating that she was in all likelihood Egyptian by birth and not a foreign (Mitannian) princess.

What we do know is that from early on, she was Akhenaten’s Great Royal Wife and she played a prominent role in her husband’s religious revolution, and Dodson convincingly shows how she went from Great Royal Wife to a crowned queen to pharaoh, briefly ruling after her husband’s death.

As I mentioned above, the book is filled with a lot of information, including many things that were new to me. I’ve been reading about Ancient Egypt in general, and the 18th Dynasty in particular, for many years, but admit to not keeping up with all the latest finds and research.

Among the pieces of information I found of interest is that Smenkhkare was a pharaoh in his own right and not something morphed into by Nefertiti as suggested in years past, that he was most likely a younger brother of Akhenaten who married Princess Meritaten (Akhenaten and Nefertiti’s oldest daughter), and that contrary to popular belief perpetuated in fictional works, royal succession was not through the female line but the more traditional oldest son (which Dodson demonstrates by referencing numerous examples of a crown prince shown on monuments).

Change is never easy, and the royal couple appears to have paid the price for their attempts. Akhenaten may have been assassinated, with his mummified body eventually destroyed to deny him an afterlife, and Nefertiti (who has been identified as the Younger Lady found in KV 35) died a violent death as evidenced by the smashed-in face of her mummy.

Because her husband’s religious revolution (which was more of a power struggle between the pharaoh and the rival priesthood of Amun-Re) didn’t sit well with most of the country, many documents and monuments that would have told us much about Nefertiti, her husband, and their immediate successors (Smenkhkare, Meritaten, Tutankhamun) were systematically destroyed or usurped and re-written by their successors. Over time, Nefertiti, Akhenaten, and the rest of their royal family, were all but forgotten, left out of the official records in another example of history being written by the victors.

The last section of the book tells how little by little, the names of Nefertiti and the other Amarna royals were resurrected as the science of Egyptology was born. Mistakes were made along the way, but that is only to be expected as an ancient language was slowly translated, and the lost history was reconstructed from broken bits and pieces. Today, Nefertiti is one of the most immediately recognized faces in the world, even if many of the people who sport her image have only the vaguest idea who she was.

All in all, an excellent book well worth reading for arm chair archaeologists like me, as well as historians and history buffs.

[Stephanie Bange · Rating 5 out of 5]

An academic treatise of the life of Nefertiti, based on the latest research.

Not a true biography of this enigmatic Egyptian queen, rather it is a work that weaves together all of the old and current scholarship available about her. Divided into five chapters to match the chapters of her life ("The Cradle of Nefertiti", "Queen of Egypt", "To Crowned Queen and Pharaoh", "Limbo", and "Resurrection"), Dodson makes many inferences to fill in the gaps - explaining them in the process. He relies on primary sources (many included) to support each premise. These include high quality color photos, excellent B&W line drawings, maps, and diagrams. Appended matter includes a Chronology of time periods/Egyptian Dynasties and years, footnote sources, 15 pages of bibliography/works cited, sources for images, and an index.

Very comprehensive. A must for collections of Egyptian history.

[Aryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Think of artifacts of Ancient Egypt - those smaller than the pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx. Did you think of the bust of a woman with a flat topped blue headpiece? That’s the bust of Nerfertiti. While the piece of art is famous internationally, the details of Nefertiti’s life are hard to pin down. In this academic work, Aidan Dodson covers many of the conflicting stories about Nefertiti, both in life and in her afterlife and rediscovery. While this is undeniably an academic book, it’s not totally inaccessible to general readers. While some of the dating mechanisms and references to other kings went over my head, the surrounding information was sufficient to still follow the rest of the argument, or at least the general idea that was being conveyed. An interesting read, if you’re willing to work for the information (or already more familiar with Ancient Egypt than I am).

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for an honest review.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Less a biography and more of an academic summing up of what is known about the (now) famous ancient Egyptian Queen and Pharaoh. I have read most of Dodson's books and it is up there with his best work. He does a convincing job of piecing together all of the disparate threads of Armarna history to give a coherent and believable thesis as to who Nefertiti was, and how she became, for a brief period, pharaoh. I have been reading works on the Amarna period for a long time and Dodson's reconstruction makes a lot of sense. Recommended.

[Eva María · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estupendo. Un recorrido actualizado por todo lo que se sabe de esta famosa reina egipcia. El periodo de Akhenatón es apasionante, pero las dificultades para acumular certezas son tan grandes como los siglos que nos separan.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always been fascinated by Nefertiti and Akhenaten and their family and this book was very interesting.