Nefertari

Egyptian queen

• Born: c. 1307 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Thebes, Egypt
• Died: c. 1265 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Nubia, or Pi-Ramses, Egypt

Ramses II had at least eight wives, of whom Nefertari, his first and clearly his favorite, exercised significant political and religious influence on the pharaoh and on the society over which he reigned.

Early Life

Few facts have been unearthed regarding the early life of Nefertari (neh-fehr-TAH-ree), although she is thought to have been highborn, of noble, but not royal, birth. Because her name is often followed by a phrase indicating that she was beloved by Mut, a goddess associated with the area of Thebes, which is on the Nile River some hundred miles (160 kilometers) north of Aswān and fifty miles (80 kilometers) south of Abydos, it is generally thought that she was born in or around Thebes. The exact date of her birth is the subject of considerable conjecture.

It apparently was considered advantageous politically for Ramses IIII3IIII to marry the daughter of a prominent nobleman from Thebes because his family was centered largely in Egypt’s delta north of Cairo and did not share blood connections with Egyptian royalty. Ramses’ forebears rose to power and prominence not through inheritance and blood ties but through their military service to the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Horemheb, who, having no male heirs, chose as his successor Ramses’ grandfather, Parameses, who changed his name to Ramses and, before his death in 1294 b.c.e., ruled for one year as Ramses I, first pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty.

The name Nefertari was the name of the wife and sister of Pharaoh Ahmose I, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and the mother of Amenhotep I. Ahmose-Nefertari dwelled in Thebes during its most exciting and successful period. Her husband fought off and banished Asian invaders, the Hyksos, around 1570 b.c.e. That Nefertari adopted Ahmose-Nefertari’s headdress, a vulture between two plumes, suggests that she had ties to Thebes and likely was born there.

Nefertari married Ramses II before he became pharaoh. His father, Seti I, put his son under little direct pressure to marry, but, after he officially became prince regent, provided him with a harem and a goodly assortment of desirable women from whom to choose future mates. Nefertari, then in her early teens, was presumably one of the young ladies Seti selected as a prospective mate for the young Prince Ramses.

Polygamy was fully accepted among Egyptian royalty at that time and was also permitted among commoners, although more commoners were monogamous than polygamous. Among the primary functions of royalty was the production of heirs to feed leaders into the royal pipeline. Ramses and Nefertari made their initial contribution to this pipeline with the birth of their first son, Amenherwenemef, born shortly before Ramses ascended the throne around 1290 b.c.e.

During his lifetime, Ramses is thought to have fathered approximately one hundred children, some sixty of them sons. Ironically, none of the six children born to him by Nefertari outlived Ramses himself, who reigned for sixty-seven years and who died in his ninetieth year. On his death, Ramses was succeeded by Merenptah, then in his sixties and the eldest of Ramses’ thirteen surviving sons.

Merenptah was Ramses’ issue from Istnofret, Ramses’ second wife, who, like Nefertari but unlike Ramses’ other wives, was referred to by the epithet King’s Great Wife. Nefertari alone bore the revered title Mistress of the Two Lands, meaning that she, like her husband, wielded power in both Upper and Lower Egypt. The designation Ruler of Two Lands was usually reserved for kings.

Life’s Work

Aside from a few cuneiform tablets that provide researchers with some written record of Nefertari’s life, most of what is known about her has been pieced together from such artifacts as statues, stelae, and wall paintings, many from her tomb in the Valley of the Tombs of the Queens at Abu Simbel, across the Nile River from Luxor. Although the meanings of these assorted artifacts have been subject to varied interpretations by cadres of archaeologists and Egyptologists, some quite reliable conclusions have been drawn from them.

Nefertari’s marriage to Ramses II, usually referred to as Ramses the Great, was a genuine love match. Both were young, Nefertari in her early teens and Ramses only slightly older, at the time they married. Ramses adored Nefertari, who was among the most beautiful and accomplished women in his realm. His love for her was clearly greater than his love for any of his other wives, one of whom was his sister and two of whom were his daughters. Only Istnofret enjoyed anything resembling the sort of affection that Ramses lavished on Nefertari throughout their marriage.

After Ramses became pharaoh, Nefertari worked actively with him, traveling throughout his empire and, judging from various artifacts, sitting beside him during affairs of state. It is significant that two statues that depict her at the entry of her tomb are about 35 feet (11 meters) high, equal in size to the four statues of Ramses on the facade of the tomb. This indicates that she was considered of equal importance to him. Such statuary generally depicts women as smaller than the powerful men whom they married.

For the first few years of Ramses’ reign, Nefertari played a significant role in the political and religious life of his realm. She traveled with the pharaoh from Pi-Ramses in the north up the Nile to Cairo and Gizeh, Abydos, Thebes, Gebel el-Silsila, Aswān, and Abu Simbel to the south, sometimes undertaking the 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) journey up the length of the Nile in the heat of summer. Her importance is documented by the titles she bore and by many images of her adorning monuments at the temples at Karnak and Luxor as well as at her tomb at Abu Simbel. Her impact on Nubia was especially strong.

The rock shrine at Gebel el-Silsila has statuary depicting the queen as appeasing the gods with offerings. This depiction was highly unusual because it is the king who, as chief priest of Egypt, generally made offerings to the gods. That Nefertari is depicted in a position normally reserved for pharaohs suggests the queen’s special status and political power within Ramses’ kingdom.

A few years into her marriage to Ramses, Nefertari more or less disappeared from public view for reasons that have not been adequately explained. Public record of her is found in the third year of Ramses’ reign, when she is shown beside the king on the new pylon at the Luxor Temple. This was the last datable reference to Nefertari for nearly two decades. She was, it must be remembered, the mother of six children. Perhaps she opted to devote herself to raising them rather than delegate this responsibility to servants. Whatever accounted for this period of official silence, Nefertari did not emerge from it until the twenty-first year of her husband’s reign.

It was in that year, 1268 b.c.e., that Hatti, the other major political power of that day, signed a peace treaty with Egypt. Apparently, this accord was something that Nefertari had longed for and probably had exerted her powers as the pharaoh’s best-loved wife to help achieve.

When the treaty was signed, Padukhepa, queen of the Hatti, sent a letter to Nefertari expressing her delight that peace had been accomplished, marking the end of over twenty years of seething tensions between the two countries. Although Padukhepa’s letter has not survived, Nefertari’s cuneiform response has. She writes to the queen warmly, in a sisterly fashion, wishing her and her people good fortune and happiness. This letter demonstrates that Nefertari was, at this point, actively involved again in important affairs of state.

Ramses’ love and high regard for Nefertari are attested to by his decision to have constructed to the north of his own elaborate tomb, dedicated to himself and to the official gods of Egypt, a corresponding tomb for her dedicated to Hathor, the patroness of motherhood and the goddess of love. This tomb, at Abu Simbel, is adorned with some 600 square feet (183 square meters) of elaborate and colorful wall paintings, which have been preserved and conserved through the efforts of the J. Paul GettyConservation Institute and the Egyptian Antiquities Organization.

On the completion of the tombs of Ramses and of Nefertari, Ramses, his queen, and their daughter Meryetamen sailed a thousand miles up the Nile from Pi-Ramses for the pharaoh’s official inauguration of the incredibly lavish structures. The viceroy of Nubia, Hekanakht, who was part of the extensive waterborne royal party, had a stele carved out of the nearby rock to commemorate the event. The stele depicts Ramses and Meryetamen engaged in the dedication rituals, while it shows Hekanakht attending Nefertari, who is seated, probably indicating that she is unwell. No later public images of Nefertari have appeared, suggesting that she died not long after her tomb was inaugurated.

Significance

During the early years of her reign, Nefertari was a political and religious force, at times probably strongly influencing her husband’s decisions. It was early assumed that her first-born, Amenhcrwenemef, would become Egypt’s ruler on the death of Ramses, but Ramses outlived all of Nefertari’s children, not dying until 1213 b.c.e.

Despite a period of seeming withdrawal from public life, Nefertari reemerged, probably as an indirect participant, in helping to bring about a peace treaty between Egypt and its longtime archrival Hatti. Nefertari was a highly independent person, as is suggested by several of the wall paintings in her tomb.

Ramses’ name is absent from her tomb, indicating that she was considered to have the strength to negotiate alone the perilous and complicated ventures through the afterworld in which Egyptians strongly believed. This was traditionally a journey seldom taken by women without the guidance of men.

Bibliography

Corso, Miguel Angel, ed. Wall Paintings of the Tomb of Nefertari. Santa Monica, Calif.: The Getty Conservation Institute, July, 1987. This initial report on the contents of Nefertari’s tomb is essentially a catalog of what is in it.

Corso, Miguel Angel, and Mahasti Afishar, ed. Art and Eternity: The Nefertari Wall Paintings Conservation Project, 1986-1992. Santa Monica, Calif.: The J. Paul Getty Trust, 1993. Offers detail of how the Getty Conservation Project proceeded over a six-year period. The aim of the conservation project is conservation, not restoration. Salt deposits were removed and the wall paintings carefully washed. Missing parts were replaced with plaster. Richly illustrated.

The Editors of Time-Life Books. Ramses II: Magnificence on the Nile. Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1993. Useful to those seeking information about Nefertari. Profusely illustrated, comprehensive index, extended bibliography. Chapter 3, “Of Queens, Consorts, and Commoners,” is especially relevant. The authors credit Ramses II with fathering more than ninety children, six of whom were born to Nefertari. Eight pages of color illustrations.

McDonald, John K. House of Eternity: The Tomb of Nefertari. Los Angeles: The Getty Conservation Institute, 1996. This is perhaps the most significant book about Nefertari to date. Its introductory sections and frequent sidebars offer useful biographical information, but it is the color reproductions of the wall paintings from Nefertari’s tomb that distinguish the book. The story of how the tomb was discovered, how its contents have been cleaned and preserved, and how the various wall paintings have been interpreted is extremely valuable.

Menu, Bernardette. Ramesses II: Greatest of the Pharaohs. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999. A concise, well-balanced history of Ramses and his reign. Includes useful information such as lists of Ramses’ known advisers, spouses, and children.