Judging from where they sit, it would sometimes be easy to mistake Akhenaten and Nefertiti for each other. Nefertiti’s position on the regal throne and her husband’s on a simple stool adds support to the theory that by the fifth year of Akhenaten’s approximately sixteen year reign -- when they moved to Amarna -- Nefertiti ruled alongside her husband. The Nubian wig seen on Nefertiti had been reserved for men until she adopted it. Generally, Nefertiti is shown as shorter than her husband. In many of the portraits, Nefertiti and her husband are both displayed with full breasts and rounded bellies, but after the move to Amarna, Nefertiti usually wears the flat-top crown and normally wears a diaphanous gown. Her husband, on the other hand, wears the pleated kilt. Both have thickened thighs and thin calves, as do their six children. The children also have egg-shaped heads whose origin is just one of many mysteries yet to be solved. The heads could have been manipulated into that shape from infancy, or the shape could be symbolic, representing the fertility with which Nefertiti was associated. About halfway through Akhenaten's reign, Nefertiti stopped mirroring her husband in art.
The King's Great Wife Nefertiti disappears shortly after the death of her daughter Meketaten. Was she banished? Did she die of the same plague that may have killed three of her daughters? Was she replaced by another favorite: Nefertiti's daughter Meritaten or Kiya (possible mother of Tutankhamen and Smenkhkare)? Did she change her name to Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten and act as regent to Tutankhamen? Or did she become co-regent with Akhenaten, and then step down when Akhenaten died? These are some of the possibilities Tyldesley evaluates.
In Nefertiti : Egypt's Sun Queen, Tyldesley explains many of the standard theories and important archaeological discoveries. Illustrations animate descriptions of distant reliefs and statues. Tyldesley discusses controversial theories, leaving resolution for the future when excavations or science can provide better information. However, while the story of the Amarna period is certainly fascinating, it is disappointing to read what purports to be a biography of a famous and beautiful queen without learning much about its subject -- Nefertiti herself.
