1 a, b, c: The plastered and painted bust of a queen, identified by her crown as Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten, recovered from the Amarna workshop of the chief of works Thutmose, and now displayed in the Neues Museum, Berlin.
2. Stela showing the Amarna royal family – Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their three eldest daughters – sitting beneath the rays of the Aten. The royal family take the place of the traditional gods who have been banished under Akhenaten’s henotheistic regime.
3. A broken bust of Akhenaten, recovered from Thutmose’s Amarna workshop.
4. An aging Nefertiti: statuette recovered from the Thutmose workshop.
5. The Sakkara tomb of the late Eighteenth Dynasty artist Thutmose. The door has been bricked up in modern times to protect the tomb.
6. Colossal head of ‘Orus’, Amenhotep III, wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, recovered from Thebes.
7. Small wooden head of Queen Tiy, recovered from Gurob. The head and its crown, once part of a composite statue, have been extensively re-worked in antiquity.
8. Archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt (sitting) with visitors at Amarna, December 1912.
9. The painted and inscribed stela, part of a household shrine, chosen by Inspector Gustave Lefebvre in place of the Nefertiti bust.
10. The discovery of the ‘life-sized colourful bust of queen’ in the ruined Amarna workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, 6 December, 1912.
11 a, b, c, d, e: A modern Nefertiti emerges from a block of Portland limestone.
12. Little Warsaw’s installation The Body of Nefertiti: a work which took as its inspiration the redisplay of popular and historical symbols in contemporary contexts. The ancient bust was for a brief time displayed on a modern metal body.
13. Fred Wilson’s 1993 Grey Area (Brown Version): five identical plaster Nefertiti busts in various shades are designed to raise questions about the racial identity of the ancient Egyptians.
14. Isa Genzken’s 2012 Nofretete: seven sunglasses-wearing Nefertitis are used to raise questions about the place of women in art.
15. The Samalut roundabout Nefertiti. Intended as a tribute to Egypt’s most beautiful queen, this version of Nefertiti was vilified on the internet, and was quickly removed.
