CLEOPATRA: LAST QUEEN OF EGYPT

Cleopatra: last queen of Egypt

Cleopatra: last queen of Egypt

Joyce A. Tyldesley attempts to unravel the many mysteries surrounding Nefertiti by looking at archaeological evidence, religious and mortuary art, and architecture from the late 18th dynasty. While we don't know where Nefertiti came from, what happened to her when she suddenly disappeared, when or where she died, or what happened to her corpse, we know much about other major figures in her life.In Nefertiti, Joyce A. Tyldesley attempts to unravel the many mysteries surrounding Nefertiti by looking at archaeological evidence, religious and mortuary art, and architecture from the late 18th dynasty. While we don't know where Nefertiti came from, what happened to her when she suddenly disappeared, when or where she died, or what happened to her corpse, we know much about other major figures in her life.

Rich and powerful, the pharaohs, from Nefertiti's husband's grandfather (Thutmosis IV) forward, broke traditions, engaged in conspicuous building programs, and inaugurated novel fashions, including the pleated kilt (to which Christine El Mahdy in a similar biography of Tutankhamen attributes the appearance of Akhenaten's pot belly), full makeup, and heavy wigs.

The pharaohs' choices for Kings' Great Wives (what we think of as queen) were a little out of the ordinary. Thutmosis IV married a daughter of the king of Mitanni. Amenhotep III married Tiy, the daughter of a non-royal couple, Yuya and Thuya.

When Amenhotep III's heir, Thutmosis died, Amenhotep IV succeeded his father to the throne. He then married and made King's Great Wife, Nefertiti. We don't know who her parents were but they may have been a wealthy, Egyptian, non-royal family.

Amenhotep IV, the husband of Nefertiti, made a far more dramatic break with recent tradition when he, reverting to an Old Kingdom solar theology, adopted Aten ...