The Search for Nefertiti By Joann Fletcher Hodder and Stoughton 452pp, Pounds 18.99 ISBN 0 340 83154 5
Nefertiti was one of the most beautiful women in history, and she is increasingly thought to have been one of the most manipulative.
Egyptologist Joann Fletcher believes she has found Nefertiti's body walled up in a side chamber in the tomb of Amenophis II, officially and less romantically known as KV35 in the Valley of the Kings. There are three mummies in this chamber, in which they have languished since the discovery of the tomb in 1898. They are almost certainly royal, and had been moved into the tomb for safety in ancient times. One is a middle-aged woman who has sometimes been identified with Tiye, the mother of the revolutionary Pharaoh Akhenaten. The second is a boy aged about 12 who might, or might not, be Akhenaten's short-lived elder brother. The third is a woman, probably in her late twenties, who the author suggests is none other than the long-lost beauty. It would be something of a coup for Egyptology, and for forensic science, if Fletcher were right.
It is a tempting idea, but this is not enough to make it true. Nefertiti was the principal wife of Akhenaten. This iconoclast spent his reign attempting to cancel traditional Egyptian religion and replace it with an austere monotheism with himself as its mouthpiece. As a result, orthodoxy could only view him as a heretic, and he was referred to posthumously, when he was mentioned at all, as "that criminal".
The Valley of the Kings was one of the most sacred spots in that traditional religion. The chances of finding Akhenaten interred in the Valley of the Kings are roughly the same as the odds on finding Martin Luther buried in the Vatican. Much the same applies to his wife, since she played a full part in the religious revolution, and functioned in effect as a joint ruler with her husband. Neither would have been seen dead in the Valley of the Kings, and the feeling was no doubt mutual.
Some of the author's analysis is based on a study of ancient Egyptian hairstyles. This is a subject that can tell us useful things about Egyptian society, but it is fair to say that this part of the book is Egyptology on a bad hair day. There is a wig next to the body of the younger woman, but this is not enough to identify one person out of an extremely extended royal family. All it can do is to suggest a particular generation, and even then fashions and counter-fashions may have repeated themselves.
The identification is also based on the double-piercing of the mummy's ears. This is shown on some of the portraits ascribed to Nefertiti, but not on others, including the now world-famous Berlin head. Did she sometimes have her ears pierced and sometimes not? The portraits from Amarna, Akhenaten's capital, that show this feature appear to be of young girls, and they are not named; these may well be some of the queen's daughters rather than Nefertiti herself.
The mummy is probably too young to be Nefertiti. She was active throughout most, if not all, of her husband's 17-year reign, and the couple produced six daughters. Nefertiti would have been well into her thirties, if not older, when she died. Yet the the body in KV35 is of a person estimated to have died under the age of 30, which would be precocious even by ancient standards.
The corpse had been savagely attacked, but this in itself cannot give a name to it. If the mummies in the tomb of Amenophis II are not part of his family, and if they must be dated to the period of Akhenaten, there are several stronger candidates than Nefertiti. One would be her third daughter, Ankhesnamun, who married Tutankhamun and who outlived him. She, like her young husband, was a convert to orthodoxy and might well have been buried at Thebes, as was he. There are other possibilities in the family, such as another of Nefertiti's daughters or one of Akhenaten's sisters, the princesses Sitamun and Beketaten.
Fletcher is aware of these problems but her enthusiasm leads her to underestimate them. This enthusiasm is a strong feature of the book, and the chapters on court life at Thebes and Amarna are vividly written. She maintains a lively pace and succeeds in weaving her own story into the narrative. She never forgets that the forensic fragments she examines were human beings who looked upon the world as we do and faced much the same problems.
But Nefertiti herself has not been found. The queen is still a sculptured head in Berlin, which is what she will always be, since her body was probably taken from its burial place and destroyed. We should be content with this. It may even be for the best.
John Ray is reader in Egyptology, Cambridge University.
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