Nefertiti

Fact 11 on Nefertiti:

Attempts were made to ban the worship of any of the old gods. They built a new city called Amarna and demanded that people of Thebes moved there. The temples of the old gods including Amun were closed. Akhenaten and his queen alienated both the Egyptian people and the powerful priests of Amun.
 

Fact 12 on Nefertiti:

Amarna was a fabulous new city dedicated to the new, sole god Aten. In the sixth year of their reign both the Pharaoh and his queen changed their names in honor of the Aten. The queen was called Neferneferu-Aten, "Exquisite Beauty of the Sun Disk" and Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaten.
 

Fact 13 on Nefertiti:

Even a new art style was developed, referred to as the 'Armana Period'. Amarna artwork radically changed existing artistic conventions changing from stylised images to naturalistic style. There were no statues to the God Aten as these were viewed as idolatry.
 

Fact 14 on Nefertiti:

The pharaoh and his beautiful queen had six daughters: Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhenspaaten, Neferneferuaten, Neferneferure and Setepenre. But they had no sons.
 

Fact 15 on Nefertiti:

Queen Nefertiti attained the power and status of a Pharaoh and was co-ruler with Akhenaten but her influence decreased a little when sons were born to the Pharaoh's other wives, one of whom was Tutankhamun. The kings of Egypt practised Polygamy, meaning having more than one wife at the same time. It was quite acceptable for a pharaoh to have multiple wives ensuring the line of succession.
 

Fact 16 on Nefertiti:

The queen arranged for Tutankhamun to marry one of her daughters, Princess Ankhenspaaten.
 

Fact 17 on Nefertiti:

One of their daughters, called Maketaten, died in childbirth, and the grief of the couple was
depicted in wall paintings.
 

Fact 18 on Nefertiti:

Following the death of Maketaten the grieving queen left the royal court and retired to a villa called Hat-Aten in Amarna.
 

Fact 19 on Nefertiti:

Pharaoh Akhenaten eventually abdicated and a mysterious figure called Smenkhkare (r.1335–1334 BC) assumed the throne of Egypt.  Smenkhkare tried to continue with the new religious beliefs and there are theories that the new ruler Smenkhkare was in fact Nefertiti who took the name of Smenkhkare (Nefertiti’s religious name) and the role of pharaoh until Tutankhamun was old enough to rule.
 

Fact 20 on Nefertiti:

The religious revolution of Akhenaten ended. The powerful Priests of Amun took control of Egypt. Ancient Egypt reverted to the old religion and Amana was abandoned. The young pharaoh Tutankhamun and his wife Queen Ankhesenamun (later Ankhesenamun) were forced to move to the old capital of Thebes.
 

Fact 21 on Nefertiti:

The date of the death of Queen Nefertiti, and the circumstances that surrounded it, are unknown.
 

Fact 22 on Nefertiti:

The bust of Nefertiti: In 1912 the ancient Egyptian studio of the sculptor Thutmes was unearthed at Tell El-Amarna. The ancient studio contained the bust of Nefertiti, which is now in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin.
 

Fact 23 on Nefertiti:

The bust of Nefertiti: The limestone bust of Nefertiti has given rise to the tradition that she was one of the most beautiful women of the ancient world.