She Was Nefertiti: The Pharaoh Who Banishes All the Ancient Gods of Egypt

The bust of Nefertiti displayed for the exhibition ‘In The Light Of Amarna’, 100 years after its discovery | Credit: MICHAEL SOHN / POOL / AFP

Nefertiti and her husband had a clear mission: to banish the ancient deities and become the reigning gods of Egypt. This is their story.

Akhenaten had a clear intention: to make himself and his wife, Nefertiti, the ruling gods of Egypt . As the reigning pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty, they brought in the empire’s finest sculptor to design busts of themselves: those that would immortalize them for all eternity , as the divine couple who led the Egyptians.

And so the task was entrusted to Tuthmosis, one of the most renowned artists of antiquity. As a faithful follower of the god Aten, the deity of the sun disk in Egypt, Nefertiti was the ideal candidate to lead the religious revolution that her husband was undertaking. In a short time, she became one of the most powerful pharaohs in the imperial annals . This is her story.

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The one who banned all the gods of Egypt

GETTY IMAGES

Nefertiti translates from Ancient Egyptian as “ the beautiful one has come .” She was born around 1370 BC and from a very young age spent her days in the palace of Thebes, among the highest branches of Egyptian royalty. As the daughter of the vizier of the daughter of the vizier of Amenhotep III, a general known as ‘Ay’, she was educated among members of the ruling elite .

At the age of 11, she was betrothed to Amenhotep IV, son of the reigning pharaoh. Unbeknownst to her, together they would become one of the most powerful duos of antiquity. When they ascended to the throne, Nefertiti found it easy to adopt her husband’s plan to ban all the gods that the Egyptians had worshipped for millennia .

HIS GOAL WAS CLEAR: HE NO LONGER WANT HIS FAMILY MEMBERS TO BE THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GODS ON EARTH. ON THE CONTRARY, THEY THEMSELVES WOULD BE THE INCARNATION OF DIVINITY ON THE EARTHLY PLANE.

As a staunch believer in the Aten, explains the World History Encyclopedia, it was easy for Nefertiti to despise all other sacred Egyptian figures . At the same time, her husband enjoyed the favor of several landowners, who supported agriculture and the Egyptian economy at the time. Therefore, her gamble to depreciate the other members of the sacred pantheon was not so risky: she had the support of those who controlled the means of production .

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Nefertiti, Egypt’s ‘most beautiful’ pharaoh

Limestone relief from Tell el-Amarna, c. 1350 BC, New Kingdom of Egypt. | Credit: Egyptian Museum (Berlin) / World History Encyclopedia

The religious revolution that Nefertiti and her husband led to the creation of a new sacred style for the Egyptian palaces . She and the Pharaoh wanted to be different from all the previous rulers, so the representations made of the ‘Holy Egyptian Family’ should also be different, especially if they were to be the focus of worship on the altars.

MANY OF THE ELONGATED FEATURES SEEN ON THE ALTARS OF AKHENATON ARE ELONGATED, WITH BODIES THAT ARE ANATOMICALLY INAPPROPRIATE. NEVER BEFORE HAD ANYTHING LIKE THIS BEEN SEEN IN ANCIENT EGYPT, WHICH HAD MAINTAINED THE SAME AESTHETIC TRADITION FOR AT LEAST 3,500 YEARS.

Bust of Nefertiti / Wikimedia Commons

Not only that: they can be identified under the influence of the god Aton (or Aten), the deity of the solar disk. The light of the star caresses their faces . Sometimes, even with small hands at the end of each of the rays. The Pharaoh wanted his entire family to share this vision of the new way of running the empire, so they were represented together: either Nefertiti and him, or both with their daughters in their hands.

His mission earned him the enmity of several political opponents – and, by the way, of a large part of the Empire: they considered it sacrilege that their new leader should dishonour the gods who had ruled on high since eternity. Even more so if the new royal couple placed themselves at the centre of worship of the entire Empire.

Nefertiti and her husband cared little.

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A palace ‘carved in gold’

The palace of Nefertiti and Akhenaten was to emulate all the glory of the new royal couple . What is more, it was to make visitors feel as if they had really entered another plane of existence, beyond the earthly one. That is why, explains the former Minister of Antiquities in Egypt, Zahi Hawass, the family had the walls of the royal palace in Thebes covered with gold.

Not only that: they had it renovated in the new city of Aketaton, which translates from ancient Egyptian as the “horizon of Aten”:

«IT WAS LAYED PARALLEL TO THE RIVER, WITH ITS BOUNDARIES DEMARCED BY STELAE CARVED IN THE CLIFFS ENCLOSING THE SITE. THE KING HIMSELF ASSUMED RESPONSIBILITY FOR COSMOLOGICALLY SIGNIFICANT PLANNING. IN THE CENTRE OF THE CITY THE KING BUILT A FORMAL RECEPTION PALACE, WHERE HE COULD MEET WITH OFFICIALS AND FOREIGN DIGNITARIES,» THE SPECIALIST WROTE FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IN 2004.

As their palaces were in the north, Hawass explains, Akhenaten and Nefertiti rode in golden chariots from one end of the capital to the other. In this way, they were the very image of the Sun travelling across the sky from east to west . Ultimately, the archaeologist emphasises for the magazine, “ they were both priests and gods .”

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The couple who ‘unbalanced the order of the Universe’

Detail of a bronze-coloured bust of Nefertiti, made of plaster. / GETTY IMAGES

The subjects and faithful believers of the Egyptian pantheon did not like the new pharaohs’ banishment of all the gods. On the contrary, they considered it a despicable sacrilege , which no other family in power had ever dared to commit.

In the Egyptian worldview, the actions of the pharaohs were linked to cosmic balance , so their relationship with the deities was of utmost importance. The royal family had dishonored them. Therefore, the popularity of Akhenaten and Nefertiti collapsed shortly after:

“BY ABANDONING THE ANCIENT GODS OF EGYPT,” WRITES HISTORIAN JOSHUA J. MARK, “ACHENATHON WOULD HAVE DESABILIZED THE BALANCE OF THE UNIVERSE, AND IT IS VERY POSSIBLE THAT THE ANCIENT PRIESTS OF AMON, AND THE OTHER GODS, DECIDED TO TRY TO RESTORE THE HARMONY OF THE COUNTRY ON THEIR OWN, WITHOUT CONSULTING THE LEADER.”

As the empire was losing stability, one of the royal couple’s daughters died in childbirth at the age of just 13. Shortly afterwards, all records of Nefertiti were lost: she disappeared from sacred writings, or from any representation of the time. The last time she was represented was in a funerary passage, in which she and Akhenaten were watching over the body of their dead daughter .

Some historians believe that Nefertiti committed suicide because of the profound pain of her loss. Others claim that she may have lost faith in Aten and was immediately banished by her husband forever. In other schools of thought, however, it is said that she reigned under the name of Smenkhkare, while her stepson, Tutankhamun, ascended the throne.

However, it is not known for certain what happened to the pharaoh who banished the gods from Egypt. Her figure was lost among the dunes, leaving no trace.