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| 200mm metal bust with 8 pieces. Bust requires assembly and painting. | ||
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Alexandros Models 200mm Bust requires assembly and painting. "The heiress, The greatest of the Palace, Splendor of beauty, crowned by 2 feathers, exultant in her voice..." Among all the feminine personalities of ancient Egypt , Nefertiti is the most fascinating and enigmatic of all. The only certainty about her is that she wed AmenhotepIV (later, Akhenatón) with whom she had 6 daughters and that together they led a revolutionary politiacal and religious reform that would change Egypt forever. The rest is a mystery reconstructed from few sources. During her life she exercised a power comparable to her consort the Pharoah, and played an important role in the mentioned reforms which established - although only in an ephemeral way - the monotic cult to Aton, and the creation of a new capitol for the kingdom in substitution of Thebes , Tell el-Amarna. There are various theories about the origins of Nefertiti of which the egyptologists are in disagreement: One of these claims that she was the daughter of a high ranking functionary closely related to the royal family, "The Divine Father" Ay and his wife Tiy, who was also the carer of Nefertiti. Due to the frequency of arranged marriages between the Pharaohs and Asiatic princesses throughout the reign of the XVIII Dynasty, another theory gains strength: From diplomatic correspondence from the Egyptian court with other powers such as the Hitite empire or the kingdom of Mitanni, we know that king Tusratta offered his daughter Tadukhepa to the Pharoah Amenhotep III, The future father of Akhenaton, in exchange for a sum of gold. If this was so Tadukhepa could have changed her name on arriving to Egypt for that of Nefertiti; Her characteristic facial features, as well as her Egyptian name translate as "The beauty has arrived" and indicate foreign origin. Despite the historic lagoons, documentation shows us that Nefertiti was an exceptional person. In The Talalat, or Stelae of Amarna she is usually presented as an equal to the king, and in some cases we even see her assuming privileges exclusive to the Pharoah, mounted in her own chariot, striking the enemies of her country or making offerings to the gods. It seems that the reason for the importance conceded to the queen was in order to increase the royal family's divine category in itself, reinforcing their role as intermediaries between the divine and human worlds. The consolidation of the cult to the disk of the sun Aton, served to emphasize the divine nature of pharaoh's power. So, the "Atonian heresy" was not the fruit of the imagination of a mystic Pharoah, Akhenaton and Nefertiti took to the ultimate consequences a religious and principally political change started by the grandfather Tutmosis IV and was continued by the father AmenhotepIII, The circumstances were due to the ideological and political struggle between the king and the increasing power of the clergy of Amon. Without a doubt this change influenced the plastic arts, - sculpture, painting, architecture-. In this new "Amarnic school" Artists perused a style closer to reality, breaking away from the canons that had up till then shaped Egyptian art. Human faces are more free and spontaneous, more delicate and harmonious. The royal family appears in intimate and daily scenes, in affectionate attitude and enjoying the company of their daughters. The most known are the portraits of Akhenaton, that exaggerate his features with an elongated head and prominent lips, and the images of Nefertiti in which they make a point of her reproductive capacity and emphasize her tummy and hips in a curvaceous fashion. It appears that Nefertiti disappeared from public life around the year 12 or 13 of the Akhenaton reign. Traditionally this fact was considered by historians as her fall from grace and subsequent death, but this interpretation is refuted more and more by specialists. Perhaps the contrary occurred: Neferneferuatón Nefertiti adopted the new name of Ankheperure Neferneferuatón coinciding with the new naming of the co-regent of Egypt . Shortly after, at the death of Akhenaton in the 17th year of his reign, the mysterious name of Ankheperure Smenjkare appears as his successor, which is thought to be the new name of Nefertiti when she took power. In this case it would be another of the few occasions where a woman occupied the title of Pharoah of Egypt. But the name Smenjkare/Nefertiti fades away after only a few years from taking the thrown. The tense atmosphere of the court and the country brought about by the change of religion and capitol, added to by the crisis provoked by the sovereign's death led to the definitive disappearance (perhaps by assassination) of Smenjkare, who was succeeded by Ay and later on by Tutankhamon, who reinstated the older religious customs. Curiously, in the "Armana letters" an Egyptian queen informs the king of Hatti, Supiluliuma that she has become a widow and does not trust anyone in the court: - "My husband has died and I have no male sons... If you send me one of your sons he will become my husband..." A faction who were against the Pharoah intercepted the hitite prince sent by Supiluliuma and made him disappear signalling, for Egypt, the beginning of continuous bellicose episodes with the Hatti Realm, and for the queen the loss of the last hope to retain power. The traces of the Aton heresy were erased by the last sovereign of the XVIII Dinasty Horemheb, and later by the Ramesses Dinasty. In 1912, during the excavations of the workshop of the sculptor Tutmes realized by a German expedition in Tell el-Amarna, Some archaeologists found the bust of a forgotten queen, The most famous image of Nefertiti and one of the main icons of universal art. This discovery is currently a symbol of beauty throughout the world. Exhibited in the Egyptian museum of Berlin , her enigmatic face with a serene smile defies the passing of time. A greater part of the attraction of the piece comes from its perfect regularity and geometric forms in which long straight lines predominate, which make it pleasant for modern eyes; Its "contemporary" appearance is due to the absence of a wig. The missing left eye leads us to believe that the bust served as a model for sculptures of the queen, as the right side profile was considered the most important given that the predominant orientation of figures in Egyptian art are facing that way. Our interpretation of the bust is primarily based on the mentioned piece in Berlin, and the reconstruction undertaken by a team from Sheffield University relating to a an anonymous mummy discovered by Dr. Joann Fletcher in tomb KV35 in the Valley of the Kings, which sustains the theory that it is the mummy of Nefertiti herself. For painting we recommend an intense blue for the crown, and tones natural to semiprecious gems - Turquoise, Lapis lazuli and Chalcedony - for the Diadem with the Uraeus, The earrings and the “usekh” or collar. The model is accompanied by the hieroglyphic name of Nefertiti. The hieroglyphs are usually decorated with bright colors. |
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