Nefertiti is said to be the most beautiful and mysterious women in ancient Egypt. Her name itself means “the beautiful one is come”. She is also known with many names like; Hereditary Princess, Great of Praises, Lady of Grace, Sweet of Love, Lady of The Two Lands, Main King’s Wife, Great King’s Wife, his beloved, Lady of all Women, and Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt. Nefertiti parentage is uncertain; some believe she was of Egyptian blood, while others say she was a foreign origin. Some theories say she was the daughter of Ay, the vizier who later became pharaoh. Some also believe that she was princess of Mitanni which was known now as Syria. Her origin was mysterious but her domestic and political life was mysterious too.

Nefertiti was married when she was fifteen years old to Akhenaten who was a year older and became king upon his father's death.She ruled alongside Akhenaten and enjoyed a high profile.Evidence of her political importance is seen in many carved scenes.She is shown appearing behind her husband the Pharaoh in offering scenes in the role of the queen supporting her husband, but she is also depicted in scenes that would have normally been the prerogative of the king. She is shown smiting the enemy, and captive enemies decorate her throne.

Durning her reign as queen Egypt went about many religious changes.The old Gods were disregarded, temples shut down, and priests forced to change their ways.They started new religion worshipping a single God known as Aten(the disk of the sun).Together they served as the high priests of the Aten. They also moved the religious capital Thebes to Amarna.

Together,Akhenaten and Nefertiti had six daughters.The depictions show the couple side by side often with only one or two daughters,but as time goes on,the number increases until there are six. In the above stela,the couple is seated together.Akhenaten is giving his daughter an earring while his wife Nefertiti has the other two daughters on her lap. In this depiction, the queen is having a wonderful time and is shown in a loving manner with her husband and children.

Akhenaten had a son from his second wife Kiya.Tutankhamun ascended to the throne after the death of his father Akhenaten.He was less than 10 years of age when he assumed the throne.He married to Akhenaten's and Nefertitit's third daugther who was his half-sister. Under his rule Egypt moved its religious capital back to Thebes. Which means the official worship to god Amun was brought back to Egypt.After less than a decade rule,Tutankhamun dies without living heirs.This brings the spectacular period of Amarna to an end.

Twelve years towards the end of Akhenaten's reign into the Amarna Period Nefertiti disappears.They are many theories of her disappearance. Archeologists and historians never found any records of her.Some say she died, some believe she was murdered; some say she has gone to other kingdom changed her name and ruled with power. She had equal powers as her husband and some believe this could be the cause of her disappearance. Some speculate, due to her daughter’s death, she left the kingdom in grief. Graves for King Tutankhamen, King Akhenaten, Queen Kia and King Akhenaten’s mother queen Tiyee were found, which suggest that they have given a proper royal burial. However, no grave was found for Queen Nefertiti.Though we will never know what happened to the queen she will forever remain a mystery.

Reference : Pharaohs Of the Sun by Rita E Freed; The Queens of Egypt by Janet R. Buttles.

Inspiration from Cleopatra

           It is always interesting to use the images from ancient world as an inspiration for the new work. Cleopatra seems to be a great source that inspired artist to create.

                                                                Guido Cagnacci, 1658

                                                              Reginald Arthur, 1892

             The two paintings about are both named “The death of Cleopatra” that show the imagination of the artist about the story of her death. In many ancient sources, people believed that Cleopatra was bitten by an asp. In Cagnacci’s painting, the asp was biting her arm and there are some people around her. However, this story was changed when Shakespeare wrote the tragedy “Anthony and Cleopatra” and re-introduce a part of the story, that Cleopatra was clutching a snake to her breast. This is shown in Arthur’s painting above.
             Only with the death of Cleopatra, artists have many ways to imagine and describe it. That’s why with the story of her life, Joseph L.Mankiewics can made a great film in the cinema history. It was “Cleopatra”, a British-American-Swiss epic drama film in 1963 starring by Elizabeth Taylor. This is the portrait of her on the film.
       

            “Cleopatra” was the most expensive film in history with US $44 millions spending for it. The film earned four Academy Awards and got US $57.5 millions in total. After this film, there were also more films and movies about the Queen, but the one in 1963 is still the most famous film inspired from Cleopatra. Nevertheless, Cleopatra is also an idea for modern beauty also. There is a style of make up that is strongly inspired by Egyptian beauty of woman, especially by Cleopatra. Here is some examples of it.

A thousands years old beauty seems to be new and modern when people creatively get ideas from it. I also got an idea from an illustration of Cleopatra and re-created it based on my feeling about her, and her mystery look related to the feeling about ancient Egypt.

             

                                                                                                         Linh Tran

Portrait of Cleopatra

         Portrait of Cleopatra Cleopatra VII, used to be called Cleopatra, is one of the most famous person in history because of her beauty, intelligence, and her ability to control Egypt as a King. She was a member of Ptolemaic dynasty (a Greek family) who became the last Pharaoh of ancient Egypt.
       
         There are many mystery stories about Cleopatra and it interest historians, archeologists, and artists to discover about her, especially her beauty. In most of studies, Cleopatra was portrayed as a great beauty. Plutarch says in his “Life of Antony”, “…her beauty, as we are told, was in itself neither altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her." We can see Cleopatra’s portrait in many works, both from ancient Egypt and from modern period.

        Her beauty is an inspiration for many modern artwork to create a portrait of a beautiful woman. In these artworks, she has a strong eyes contact that attracts people at the first look. However, the real portrait of Cleopatra is still a mystery now. In 1940, her coffin was found in France. Instead of keeping it to explore, people made it flowing in the river, so we have no evidence about how she looks.
     
       Recently, there are some discussion about Cleopatra’s face according to her portrait in the Egyptian coins. “Ancient coin shows Cleopatra was no beauty” is an article in CNN website (2007) talking about the possibility that Cleopatra is not beautiful as people know. “A study of a 2,000-year-old silver coin found the Egyptian queen, famously portrayed by a sultry Elizabeth Taylor, had a shallow forehead, pointed chin, thin lips and sharp nose,” that is how she was describe from the images of the coins.

        Base on this information, we can think about her in another way, that the attraction of her can come from some other aspects as her intelligence, her good talking and communication with people. Even though no one know the real face of Cleopatra, she is still the inspiration for many artworks. (See Inspiration from Cleopatra for details)
                                       
                                                                                                                             Linh Tran

Hâtshopsîtû (Hatshepsut)

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Her full name is “The Horus, mighty by his Kas (doubles), the lord of East and West, abounding in years, the Good Goddess, the Pious Lady, the Golden Falcon, devine in her risings, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Kamara, the Daughter of Ra, Khnumit Amon, Hâtshopsîtû”. That is why I will be using Hatshepsut to refer to the female Pharaoh because Hâtshopsîtû is hard to type and looks hard to say. Keep in mind that Egyptians believed in the purity of royal blood because Pharaohs were the equivalents of gods, this lead to inbreeding.

Thutmose I (also known as Thoutmôsis I) and Queen Aahmes are the father and mother of Hatshepsut. Her father was son of Amenôthes I and a woman of non-royal rank named Senseneb. Aahmes was the daughter of Amenôthes I and Aanhotpou who was of royal blood. Being the daughter of a king and princess validated her right to the throne. In Egypt, lineage is traced through the mother. This royal blood put Hatshepsut before her half-brother, Thutmose II, and her nephew, Thutmose III. Thutmose II is the son of Thutmose I and a concubine. Thutmose III is the son of Thutmose II and by proxy is of lesser status.

In Progress

Like most Pharaohs, Hatshepsut created a story about her divine birth, validating her right to rule, by claiming to be the daughter of the god Amon. The story goes that Amon summons nine gods of Heliopolis plus Menthu of Thebes, Horus and Hathor. Amon makes an announcement that a princess will be born and the gods agree to protect her. Thoth gives Aahmes’ name to Amon who then takes the shape of Thutmose I and enters her bedroom. Khnum, a god of pottery makes the princess. Thoth, Anubis and Seshait give her a long life and Hatshepsut is baptized by Horus and Amon. The baptism part most likely happened with the parts of Amon and Horus being played by priests dressed in masks.

Hatshepsut became Pharaoh in the Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom. She was appointed as successor to Thutmose I because of her superior royal blood in comparison to her half-brother, Thutmose II. At her coronation she was given a royal name by priests, which is the lengthy bit of text at the top. Hatshepsut ruled with Thutmose II for 14 years until his death. She then acted as regent for Thutmose III who was too young to rule.

Deir el-Bahri is Hatshepsut’s funerary temple, designed for funerary rites and commemorative ceremonies. It’s about a mile away from her actual tomb which is in the Valley of the Kings. Her tomb is much smaller than her temple which is the opposite in scale of Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom (e.g. pyramids). The walkway of Deir el-Bahri used to be lined with sphinxes that ran all the way to a temple on the Nile. Myrrh trees were planted in the temple’s garden. The ramp leads to a floor that has shrines to Anubis and Hathor. On the top there are large royal statues, behind is a hall with chapels dedicated to Hatshepsut, her father, Amon and Ra-Horakhy ( a powerful combination of the sun god Ra and Horus).

It was uncommon for a female Pharaoh at the time and Hatshepsut knew her gender would be an obstacle. The hieroglyphs refer to a female but the statues and engravings depict a male, sometimes even with a Pharaoh’s ceremonial beard. Sadly, many of the engravings of Deir el-Bahri were destroyed by Coptic monks, Amenôthes IV and the Ramessides who all opposed her rule. They sometimes destroyed her face and often replaced it with the portrait of Thutmose II.

Lily Wilkinson

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References

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Naville, Edouard, Howard Carter, and Theodore Davis. The Tomb of Hâtshopsîtû.
London: A. Constable and, 1906. Print.
Stokstad, Marilyn, Michael Watt. Cothren, and Frederick M. Asher. Art History. 4th ed. Vol.
Combined. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2011. Print.