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QUEEN NEFERTITI IS one of the most well-known of the Egyptian royals, mostly because of the beautiful bust of her which now resides at the Egyptian Museum of Berlin. The 3,000+ year old bust presents Nefertiti as a woman of extraordinary beauty. Unfortunately, it is housed in Germany, despite multiple requests that it be repatriated to Egypt, something my husband, a museum professional, feels strongly about.
But in more recent news, archeologists have claimed to have discovered evidence of a possible hidden chamber behind the tomb of Tutankhamen, Nefertiti’s step-son or even possibly her son. Efforts to investigate this possible secret chamber are still underway, but there are some very interesting theories. To appreciate those, we must first know a bit about the Queen herself.
Nefertiti was the wife of King Akhenaten, and is believed to have been one of the only pharaohs’ wives to have wielded power nearly equal to the king’s. Her husband went to great lengths to display her as his equal. The two of them began a revolution of sorts by advocating the worship of a single god, Aten, instead of multiple gods. Egyptologist Dr. Christopher Naunten states, “They were closer to being Gods in their own right than any other pharaohs.”
Most of the pharaohs of the time before and after Nefertiti have been accounted for, but the queen’s body has never been located. Some evidence suggests she may have been buried in a place hundreds of kilometers away from the Valley of the Kings. The Armana tomb was made to house multiple burials, but her body has not been definitively identified as one of those that were there.
Still, there are reasons to believe that Nefertiti could have been buried in the Valley of the Kings. Some evidence suggests that when her husband Akhenaten died, Nefertiti ruled in his stead, possibly even dressing as a man for that role. So there is speculation that the hidden burial chamber was hers, and that when her son Tutankhamen reigned, he possibly assumed the goods and treasures from her chamber as his own. There is even a strange theory that the famous King Tut death mask was actually hers, and that the impression of her face was removed and replaced with that of the boy king.
I’d already created Red’s character before I realized she would be Egyptian, so I was worried about her physical characteristics. Red hair and fair skin. Interestingly enough, there is evidence that some Egyptian mummies were naturally fair skinned and had red or even blonde hair. So, I needn’t have worried. Red could very well be Egyptian.
One last bit of trivia – when I began developing the part of Atreus in this story, I just intended that he would have been a slave of Queen Nefertiti. But when I began studying the tombs of the Egyptian royals, I came across the term ushabty or ushabti. These were small funerary figures placed in the tombs. Meaning “followers” or “answerers,” these were intended to carry out tasks for the deceased as they transitioned into the afterlife.
Happy reading, all!
About the Author
WHEN OLIVIA HARDIN began having strange movie-like dreams in her teens, she had no choice but to begin putting them to paper. Before long the writing bug had her and she knew she wanted to be a published author. Several rejections plus a little bit of life later, and she was temporarily “cured” of the urge to write. That is until she met a group of talented and fabulous writers who gave her the direction and encouragement she needed to get lost in the words again.
Olivia’s attended three different universities over the years and toyed with majors in Computer Technology, English, History and Geology. Then one day she heard the term road scholar and she knew that was what she wanted to be. Now she “studies” anything and everything just for the joy of learning. She's also an insatiable crafter who only completes about 1 out of 5 projects, a jogger who hates to run, and she’s sometimes accused of being artistic.
A native Texas girl, Olivia lives in the beautiful Lone Star state with her husband, Danny and their puppy, Bonnie.
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