WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.339 Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today we are opening 00:00:03.339 --> 00:00:05.700 up a file on a subject that I think most people 00:00:05.700 --> 00:00:08.199 feel like they already know. You close your eyes, 00:00:08.240 --> 00:00:10.380 you say the name, and boom, an image is right 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:13.880 there. Instantly. The blue crown, the long, elegant 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:17.179 neck, the symmetry. It is probably the most famous 00:00:17.179 --> 00:00:19.579 piece of limestone in human history. The bust 00:00:19.579 --> 00:00:22.739 in Berlin. It's iconic. Exactly. We are talking 00:00:22.739 --> 00:00:25.800 about Nefertiti. She is, you know, arguably the 00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:28.059 most famous woman of the ancient world, maybe 00:00:28.059 --> 00:00:29.969 neck and neck with Cleopatra. I'd say so, yeah. 00:00:30.129 --> 00:00:32.189 But here's the thing, and this is why I was just 00:00:32.189 --> 00:00:34.310 glued to this stack of research you sent over. 00:00:34.590 --> 00:00:37.250 The image we have of the beautiful, serene face 00:00:37.250 --> 00:00:41.289 in the museum, it sort of acts like a mask. That 00:00:41.289 --> 00:00:43.390 is the perfect way to put it. The beauty of the 00:00:43.390 --> 00:00:47.770 Thutmose bust is so overwhelming, so technically 00:00:47.770 --> 00:00:50.770 perfect, that it almost blinds us to the political 00:00:50.770 --> 00:00:53.859 reality. of the woman herself. Right. It freezes 00:00:53.859 --> 00:00:56.299 her as a beauty icon when in reality she was 00:00:56.299 --> 00:00:58.579 a political titan. A total titan. Because when 00:00:58.579 --> 00:01:01.820 you actually dig into the inscriptions, the archaeology, 00:01:01.859 --> 00:01:03.939 and all the weird forensic evidence we have now, 00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:06.319 you don't find a passive booty queen. Not at 00:01:06.319 --> 00:01:08.879 all. You find a revolutionary. You find someone 00:01:08.879 --> 00:01:12.019 who was depicted. Well. Depicted smashing the 00:01:12.019 --> 00:01:13.859 skulls of her enemies. And according to the latest 00:01:13.859 --> 00:01:16.180 scholarship in the stack, someone who likely 00:01:16.180 --> 00:01:18.959 ruled the entire Egyptian empire as a pharaoh 00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:21.349 in her own right. That is the part we really 00:01:21.349 --> 00:01:23.870 need to unpack today. So the mission for this 00:01:23.870 --> 00:01:27.390 deep dive is to kind of shatter that limestone 00:01:27.390 --> 00:01:29.870 mask. I like that. We want to find the biological 00:01:29.870 --> 00:01:33.629 and political Nefertiti, the religious zealot, 00:01:33.629 --> 00:01:36.469 the mother, the ruler. We need to look at the 00:01:36.469 --> 00:01:38.790 evidence of her supposed disappearance, which, 00:01:38.870 --> 00:01:41.650 you know. fooled historians for decades. For 00:01:41.650 --> 00:01:43.409 a very long time, yeah. And we need to get into 00:01:43.409 --> 00:01:46.730 the sort of CSI -style forensic twists regarding 00:01:46.730 --> 00:01:49.489 her mummy. To do that, we have to set the scene 00:01:49.489 --> 00:01:52.170 properly. We are dropping into the 18th dynasty 00:01:52.170 --> 00:01:56.329 of ancient Egypt. Specifically, that window around 00:01:56.329 --> 00:02:00.450 1353 to 1336 BC. The Amarna period. Yeah. Which 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:01.950 for anyone who thinks ancient Egypt was just 00:02:01.950 --> 00:02:04.530 3 ,000 years of stasis and people, you know, 00:02:04.530 --> 00:02:07.170 walking like Egyptians, this was a time of absolute 00:02:07.170 --> 00:02:10.310 chaos. It was probably the most Two decades in 00:02:10.310 --> 00:02:12.150 Egyptian history until the collapse of the Bronze 00:02:12.150 --> 00:02:15.409 Age. Oh, absolutely. On one hand, you have immense 00:02:15.409 --> 00:02:18.430 wealth. This is the absolute peak of the empire's 00:02:18.430 --> 00:02:21.289 gold reserves. But on the other, you have a total 00:02:21.289 --> 00:02:25.150 ideological reboot. We see a shift from traditional 00:02:25.150 --> 00:02:29.389 polytheism to the exclusive worship of the sun 00:02:29.389 --> 00:02:32.250 disk, the Aten. And right at the center of the 00:02:32.250 --> 00:02:34.629 storm, driving the bus alongside the pharaoh, 00:02:34.770 --> 00:02:37.509 is Nefertiti. She's not just a passenger. She's 00:02:37.509 --> 00:02:39.259 co -piloting. So let's start at the very beginning, 00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:42.539 origins, because even her name has been a source 00:02:42.539 --> 00:02:45.599 of confusion for a long time. Nefertiti translates 00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:50.759 to the beautiful one has come. nfrt -jy .tj Yeah. 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:53.139 And I know we usually just say Nefertiti because 00:02:53.139 --> 00:02:55.879 it's easier, but based on the linguistic reconstruction 00:02:55.879 --> 00:02:58.159 in the Knights, that wasn't really how her husband 00:02:58.159 --> 00:02:59.740 would have addressed her. No, the vocalization 00:02:59.740 --> 00:03:02.000 would have been quite different. Based on the 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:03.939 cuneiform correspondence from the diplomatic 00:03:03.939 --> 00:03:06.159 letters from other kings trying to write her 00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:08.620 name phonetically, it was likely pronounced something 00:03:08.620 --> 00:03:11.979 like Naftita. Naftita. It sounds sharper, less 00:03:11.979 --> 00:03:14.539 flowery. It does. But that meaning the beautiful 00:03:14.539 --> 00:03:17.360 one has come. That caused a massive headache 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:19.460 for historians for about a century, didn't it? 00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:23.680 Oh, it did. It's that verb, has come. Early Egyptologists 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:25.360 looked at that and thought, well, if she has 00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:27.419 come, she must have come from somewhere else. 00:03:27.580 --> 00:03:30.199 Right, not from here. Exactly. It launched this 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:32.539 persistent theory that she was a foreign princess, 00:03:32.819 --> 00:03:36.099 possibly from the Mitanni Empire, which was in 00:03:36.099 --> 00:03:39.460 modern -day Syria. The theory was that she was 00:03:39.460 --> 00:03:41.919 the princess Tadokipa, right? Correct. Tadokipa 00:03:41.919 --> 00:03:44.879 was a Mitanni princess sent to marry Amenhotep 00:03:44.879 --> 00:03:48.419 III, who was Akhenaten's father. The theory went 00:03:48.419 --> 00:03:50.439 that when the old king died, she just married 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:53.439 the son, changed her name to Nefertiti, and started 00:03:53.439 --> 00:03:56.240 a new life. But the source material in our stack 00:03:56.240 --> 00:03:58.819 puts a pin in that balloon pretty quickly. It 00:03:58.819 --> 00:04:01.659 really does. The timeline is the killer here. 00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:04.879 Tarukipa was already married to Amenhotep III. 00:04:05.379 --> 00:04:08.159 There is absolutely no record anywhere of her 00:04:08.159 --> 00:04:10.520 changing her name. And it wasn't common for foreign 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:12.930 wives to get the top job, was it? Not at all. 00:04:13.349 --> 00:04:16.370 In Egyptian royal tradition, foreign wives didn't 00:04:16.370 --> 00:04:18.529 usually become the great royal wife. They were 00:04:18.529 --> 00:04:20.889 diplomatic assets. They were housed in the harem. 00:04:22.149 --> 00:04:25.209 Nefertiti's rise was just too meteoric and her 00:04:25.209 --> 00:04:28.050 cultural integration too seamless for her to 00:04:28.050 --> 00:04:30.689 be a foreigner. Okay, so if she wasn't a foreign 00:04:30.689 --> 00:04:33.459 princess, she had to be local. And the research 00:04:33.459 --> 00:04:37.300 points to a very specific, very powerful family 00:04:37.300 --> 00:04:39.959 circle. The prevailing theory, and it is a very 00:04:39.959 --> 00:04:42.540 strong one, is that she was the daughter of a 00:04:42.540 --> 00:04:45.839 man named I. I is a name that just keeps coming 00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:48.079 up in this era. He's like the little finger of 00:04:48.079 --> 00:04:50.439 the 18th dynasty. He's always there lurking in 00:04:50.439 --> 00:04:52.879 the background of power. That is a very apt comparison. 00:04:53.259 --> 00:04:56.660 I held the title God's father. Now that title 00:04:56.660 --> 00:04:58.819 is a bit tricky, but it is often used for a man 00:04:58.819 --> 00:05:01.040 who is the father -in -law to the king. So it 00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:03.279 implies a direct family link to the throne through 00:05:03.279 --> 00:05:05.899 marriage. Precisely. But here is where the family 00:05:05.899 --> 00:05:08.300 tree gets a little twisted. I had a wife named 00:05:08.300 --> 00:05:10.959 Tay. But in the inscriptions, Tay isn't called 00:05:10.959 --> 00:05:13.420 Nefertiti's mother. Correct. Tay is given the 00:05:13.420 --> 00:05:16.180 title nurse of the great royal wife. She's never 00:05:16.180 --> 00:05:19.439 called mutt or mother. Nurse. That's a very, 00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:22.079 very specific distinction. It is. It suggests 00:05:22.079 --> 00:05:25.000 that Tay was Nefertiti's stepmother. The implication 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:27.620 is that A's first wife, Nefertiti's biological 00:05:27.620 --> 00:05:30.980 mother, died maybe in childbirth or shortly after. 00:05:31.360 --> 00:05:33.699 So Teh raised her. Which actually strengthens 00:05:33.699 --> 00:05:35.920 the idea that Nefertiti was Egyptian nobility. 00:05:36.079 --> 00:05:38.160 It does. She was raised in the absolute inner 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:40.639 circle of the court, likely growing up alongside 00:05:40.639 --> 00:05:43.860 the future king, Akhenaten. And we have another 00:05:43.860 --> 00:05:47.019 piece of evidence for this local origin, her 00:05:47.019 --> 00:05:50.319 sister. Yes, a woman named Mutbenret. She appears 00:05:50.319 --> 00:05:54.019 in the tombs at Amarna, and the hieroglyphs explicitly 00:05:54.019 --> 00:05:57.129 identify her as the sister of the queen. But 00:05:57.129 --> 00:05:59.350 Benret was married to a general, right? A general 00:05:59.350 --> 00:06:02.029 who would later become King Horemheb. So you 00:06:02.029 --> 00:06:04.209 see this really tight -knit group of Egyptian 00:06:04.209 --> 00:06:07.389 military and bureaucratic elite families all 00:06:07.389 --> 00:06:09.750 intermarrying. Nefertiti wasn't an outsider. 00:06:09.930 --> 00:06:11.970 She was the ultimate insider. Before we move 00:06:11.970 --> 00:06:13.730 to her reign, I want to clear up one thing because 00:06:13.730 --> 00:06:16.129 I feel like pop culture gets this wrong constantly. 00:06:16.970 --> 00:06:19.569 Nefertiti and King Tut. The most common misconception 00:06:19.569 --> 00:06:22.430 in the book. Everyone assumes she's his mother 00:06:22.430 --> 00:06:24.610 because they are the two most famous people from 00:06:24.610 --> 00:06:28.060 the era. But the DNA evidence from the mummies, 00:06:28.079 --> 00:06:31.879 it tells a very different story. It does. We 00:06:31.879 --> 00:06:33.980 now have genetic profiles for the 18th Dynasty 00:06:33.980 --> 00:06:37.139 royals. And we know that Nefertiti had six daughters 00:06:37.139 --> 00:06:39.180 with Akhenaten. We have their names. We have 00:06:39.180 --> 00:06:41.720 their pictures. But she never produced a male 00:06:41.720 --> 00:06:46.100 heir. Okay. So who was Tut's mom? Tutankhamun's 00:06:46.100 --> 00:06:49.519 biological mother is a woman found in tomb KV35, 00:06:49.720 --> 00:06:53.639 known to us as the Younger Lady. DNA proves the 00:06:53.639 --> 00:06:55.639 younger lady was a full sister of Akhenaten. 00:06:55.759 --> 00:06:58.519 And Nefertiti wasn't Akhenaten's sister. Exactly. 00:06:59.199 --> 00:07:01.740 Nefertiti was not royal by blood she married 00:07:01.740 --> 00:07:04.779 in. So biologically, she cannot be Tutankhamun's 00:07:04.779 --> 00:07:06.600 mother. She was his stepmother. And probably 00:07:06.600 --> 00:07:08.360 his mother -in -law too, right? Since Tut eventually 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:10.240 married one of her daughters. That's right. He 00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:12.699 married Ankhesenpaten. It's a very circular family 00:07:12.699 --> 00:07:15.160 tree. The family wreath, as we like to call it. 00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:16.920 It's less of a tree and more of a tangle. So 00:07:16.920 --> 00:07:19.639 she marries Amenhotep IV, who is about to become 00:07:19.639 --> 00:07:22.079 Akhenaten. They have these six daughters, Meretaten, 00:07:22.199 --> 00:07:25.180 Meketaten, Ankhesenpaten. Neferneferweten, Teshret, 00:07:25.339 --> 00:07:29.019 Neferneferor, and Setepen. You nailed the pronunciations. 00:07:29.139 --> 00:07:31.259 It takes practice. But what strikes me about 00:07:31.259 --> 00:07:34.240 the art... from this period is the domesticity. 00:07:34.339 --> 00:07:36.839 You look at the steles and the tomb paintings 00:07:36.839 --> 00:07:39.439 and you see the king and queen kissing. You see 00:07:39.439 --> 00:07:41.420 them bouncing the kids on their knees. You even 00:07:41.420 --> 00:07:43.360 see them crying when their daughter, Mekataton, 00:07:43.439 --> 00:07:46.899 dies. It's incredibly modern and intimate. It 00:07:46.899 --> 00:07:49.240 feels that way, yeah. But you're saying we have 00:07:49.240 --> 00:07:51.939 to be careful not to mistake intimacy for weakness 00:07:51.939 --> 00:07:55.779 or just being nice. This art was propaganda. 00:07:56.240 --> 00:07:59.699 It was. How so? By showing the royal family as 00:07:59.699 --> 00:08:02.579 this tight, loving unit, they were actually making 00:08:02.579 --> 00:08:05.300 a powerful theological statement. They were replacing 00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:08.319 the traditional gods. Okay, this brings us to 00:08:08.319 --> 00:08:11.720 the religious revolution, the Aten. Right. To 00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:14.399 understand Nefertiti's power, you have to understand 00:08:14.399 --> 00:08:16.579 what she and her husband did to the state religion. 00:08:17.239 --> 00:08:20.160 For centuries, the priesthood of Amun had been 00:08:20.160 --> 00:08:22.319 gathering power. Incredible power. They owned 00:08:22.319 --> 00:08:24.740 land. They owned mines. They controlled the bureaucracy. 00:08:25.100 --> 00:08:27.819 They were, for all intents and purposes, a shadow 00:08:27.819 --> 00:08:31.100 government. So when Akhenaten and Nefertiti pivot 00:08:31.100 --> 00:08:34.240 to the At and the Sun disc, it's not just a spiritual 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:37.200 awakening. It's a corporate restructuring. It's 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:39.759 a hostile takeover. That's the best way to think 00:08:39.759 --> 00:08:43.539 about it. Imagine a CEO deciding that all the 00:08:43.539 --> 00:08:45.759 middle management, the thousands of priests and 00:08:45.759 --> 00:08:49.340 minor gods, are fired. Go on. The CEO, the Atenin, 00:08:49.379 --> 00:08:52.519 is now the only source of power. But the Aten 00:08:52.519 --> 00:08:54.639 is abstract. It's just the sun in the sky. It 00:08:54.639 --> 00:08:56.559 doesn't talk. So you need an intermediary, a 00:08:56.559 --> 00:08:58.840 go -between. Exactly. And that is where the royal 00:08:58.840 --> 00:09:01.179 couple comes in. In the old system, you had a 00:09:01.179 --> 00:09:04.759 triad of gods like Osiris, Isis, and Horus. In 00:09:04.759 --> 00:09:07.700 Amarna, the new triad became the Aten, Akhenaten, 00:09:07.799 --> 00:09:10.460 and Nefertiti. So they became the gods on earth. 00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:12.600 They did. You didn't pray to the Aten directly. 00:09:12.759 --> 00:09:14.700 You prayed to Nefertiti and Akhenaten, and they 00:09:14.700 --> 00:09:16.740 forwarded the message. Which explains why she 00:09:16.740 --> 00:09:18.899 changed her name in year five. She didn't just 00:09:18.899 --> 00:09:21.480 stay Nefertiti. She added a prefix. Yes. She 00:09:21.480 --> 00:09:24.019 became Neferneferut Nefertiti. Beautiful is the 00:09:24.019 --> 00:09:26.440 beauty of Aten. She literally branded herself 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:28.480 with the god's name. It was a statement of intent. 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:31.320 And when you look at the archaeology, specifically 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:34.139 the Talatat blocks, the scale of her presence 00:09:34.139 --> 00:09:36.539 is just mind -blowing. Can you explain what the 00:09:36.539 --> 00:09:39.320 Talatat blocks are for the listeners? Sure. So 00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:41.700 Akhenaten was building these massive new temples 00:09:41.700 --> 00:09:44.860 at a breakneck speed. To do that, they used smaller, 00:09:45.019 --> 00:09:48.559 standardized stone blocks, Talatat, that were 00:09:48.559 --> 00:09:50.840 easier for one person to carry and stack. It 00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:52.960 was like building with Legos instead of massive 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:56.279 monoliths. A perfect analogy. Tens of thousands 00:09:56.279 --> 00:09:59.080 of these blocks have been found, reused in later 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:02.279 monuments by kings who wanted to erase the Amarna 00:10:02.279 --> 00:10:04.759 period. And when scholars started piecing these 00:10:04.759 --> 00:10:06.820 Legos back together to see what was originally 00:10:06.820 --> 00:10:09.279 painted on them, what did they find? They found 00:10:09.279 --> 00:10:12.279 Nefertiti. Everywhere. In the early years at 00:10:12.279 --> 00:10:14.000 Karnak, in a structure called the Mansion of 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:16.299 the Benben, she completely dominates the scene. 00:10:16.460 --> 00:10:18.740 How much is dominates? In fact, on the preserved 00:10:18.740 --> 00:10:21.120 blocks from the first five years, she appears 00:10:21.120 --> 00:10:23.759 almost twice as frequently as a king. Twice as 00:10:23.759 --> 00:10:25.840 frequently. That is just statistically wild. 00:10:26.059 --> 00:10:28.440 Usually the queen is the plus one. She stands 00:10:28.440 --> 00:10:30.759 behind the pharaoh, maybe shaking a rattle, looking 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:34.679 supportive. Precisely. But here, she is the main 00:10:34.679 --> 00:10:37.220 event. And it's not just the frequency, it's 00:10:37.220 --> 00:10:39.240 the action. Okay, this is where it gets really 00:10:39.240 --> 00:10:41.950 interesting. We have scenes of her doing things 00:10:41.950 --> 00:10:45.389 that traditionally only a man, only the pharaoh 00:10:45.389 --> 00:10:48.090 could do. Specifically, the smiting of the enemy 00:10:48.090 --> 00:10:51.129 motif. You know the image? The pharaoh holds 00:10:51.129 --> 00:10:53.450 a group of captive enemies by the hair with one 00:10:53.450 --> 00:10:56.570 hand and raises a mace to smash their skulls 00:10:56.570 --> 00:10:58.870 with the other. It's the ultimate symbol of the 00:10:58.870 --> 00:11:02.330 king establishing matte order over chaos. It's 00:11:02.330 --> 00:11:05.909 a masculine, violent, executive role. And yet... 00:11:06.080 --> 00:11:08.259 We have Nefertiti depicted in this exact pose. 00:11:08.419 --> 00:11:11.580 We see her on the prow of the royal barge, smiting 00:11:11.580 --> 00:11:14.100 foreign enemies. We see captive enemies decorating 00:11:14.100 --> 00:11:16.279 her throne. And she's also shown worshipping. 00:11:16.379 --> 00:11:18.419 Yes, worshipping the Aedan in the high priest 00:11:18.419 --> 00:11:21.139 manner, offering incense directly to the god 00:11:21.139 --> 00:11:23.620 without the king present. This was unheard of 00:11:23.620 --> 00:11:26.120 for a queen. So she is smiting enemies. Doesn't 00:11:26.120 --> 00:11:28.120 that technically make her a king in terms of 00:11:28.120 --> 00:11:30.139 religious function? That is exactly the argument. 00:11:30.539 --> 00:11:33.539 By taking on the role of the smiter, she is signaling 00:11:33.539 --> 00:11:36.080 that she possesses the divine authority to maintain 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:39.679 cosmic order. She isn't just a consort. She is 00:11:39.679 --> 00:11:43.179 a co -regent. She is the female aspect of kingship 00:11:43.179 --> 00:11:45.919 itself. So she is at the absolute pinnacle of 00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:48.159 power. She has her own temple. She's smashing 00:11:48.159 --> 00:11:50.600 heads. She's the face of the new religion. And 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:53.700 then the history books say she vanished. For 00:11:53.700 --> 00:11:55.700 a very long time, that was the story. Around 00:11:55.700 --> 00:11:58.779 year 12 of Akhenaten's reign, Nefertiti just 00:11:58.779 --> 00:12:00.740 seemed to drop off the map. She stopped appearing 00:12:00.740 --> 00:12:03.659 in certain reliefs. And historians, being historians, 00:12:03.919 --> 00:12:06.080 came up with all the dramatic reasons why. Oh, 00:12:06.120 --> 00:12:08.600 the theories were rampant. She died of the plague 00:12:08.600 --> 00:12:10.899 that swept through the Near East. She fell out 00:12:10.899 --> 00:12:13.679 of favor. There was a very, very popular theory 00:12:13.679 --> 00:12:15.860 that she was replaced by a secondary wife named 00:12:15.860 --> 00:12:18.679 Kia and was banished to a separate palace in 00:12:18.679 --> 00:12:21.240 disgrace. The disgrace theory was huge. I remember 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:23.460 reading that in old textbooks. Her name was erased 00:12:23.460 --> 00:12:26.399 from monuments. But archaeology is a self -correcting 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:29.419 process, and later analysis showed that the erasures 00:12:29.419 --> 00:12:32.899 were actually removing Kia's name, not Nefertiti's. 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:36.419 So the disgrace theory collapsed. But the silence 00:12:36.419 --> 00:12:39.779 in the record was still there. For a while. Until 00:12:39.779 --> 00:12:42.720 2012. This is one of my favorite moments in the 00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:45.860 research. One rock in a dusty quarry completely 00:12:45.860 --> 00:12:49.100 rewrites the timeline. Tell us about the Dada 00:12:49.100 --> 00:12:52.190 Bado Enes discovery. It's a great example. of 00:12:52.190 --> 00:12:54.529 how much is still out there waiting to be found. 00:12:54.809 --> 00:12:58.049 A mission led by Athena Vanderpeer was surveying 00:12:58.049 --> 00:13:01.090 a limestone quarry north of Amarna, a place called 00:13:01.090 --> 00:13:04.289 Quarry 320 at Deribah Bolanus. This is where 00:13:04.289 --> 00:13:05.789 the workers would have been cutting stone for 00:13:05.789 --> 00:13:07.710 the temples, right? So it's like their work site. 00:13:07.750 --> 00:13:10.090 Exactly. And the workers would often doodle or 00:13:10.090 --> 00:13:12.610 leave notes in red ochre on the walls, sort of 00:13:12.610 --> 00:13:14.929 ancient graffiti. Right. High up on a wall, they 00:13:14.929 --> 00:13:17.299 found a five -line inscription. It was just a 00:13:17.299 --> 00:13:19.519 simple administrative note, nothing poetic, but 00:13:19.519 --> 00:13:22.460 it had a date. Year 16, month 3 of Akhet, day 00:13:22.460 --> 00:13:25.379 15. Year 16. Now remember, Akhenaten died in 00:13:25.379 --> 00:13:27.940 year 17, so this is right at the very, very end 00:13:27.940 --> 00:13:29.700 of the regime. And who does the inscription mention? 00:13:30.019 --> 00:13:31.820 It mentions Akhenaten, and right beside him, 00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:34.639 the great royal wife, his beloved, Mistress of 00:13:34.639 --> 00:13:38.360 the Two Lands. Neferneferwaten Nefertiti. Mistress 00:13:38.360 --> 00:13:40.639 of the Two Lands. That is a title of immense 00:13:40.639 --> 00:13:44.500 power. And it proves definitively that she was 00:13:44.500 --> 00:13:47.440 alive, she was still the great royal wife, and 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:49.720 she was at the king's side just months before 00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:53.000 his death. So she didn't vanish in year 12. She 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:55.759 didn't die. She didn't get divorced. She was 00:13:55.759 --> 00:13:58.399 there until the bitter end. Which forces us to 00:13:58.399 --> 00:14:01.039 ask a much more interesting question. What happened 00:14:01.039 --> 00:14:03.460 when Akhenaten died a few months later? And this 00:14:03.460 --> 00:14:05.419 leads us to the biggest twist in the deep dive, 00:14:05.639 --> 00:14:08.570 the theory of the female pharaoh. This is where 00:14:08.570 --> 00:14:10.690 the detective work gets really intense. We know 00:14:10.690 --> 00:14:13.629 Akhenaten dies in year 17. We know his successor, 00:14:13.909 --> 00:14:16.690 eventually, is the boy Tutankhaten who becomes... 00:14:16.960 --> 00:14:19.279 Tutankhamun. But Tut is a child, maybe eight 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:21.480 or nine years old. He's too young to rule. Far 00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:23.659 too young. And there's a gap in the timeline. 00:14:23.899 --> 00:14:26.559 A power vacuum. Exactly. Between Akhenaten and 00:14:26.559 --> 00:14:29.000 Tutankhamun, we have evidence of a ruler named 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:31.820 Neferneferwaden. Wait, Neferneferwaden is the 00:14:31.820 --> 00:14:34.279 name Nefertiti took back in year five? It is. 00:14:34.340 --> 00:14:36.419 For a long time, scholars debated this. Was it 00:14:36.419 --> 00:14:39.059 a man? Was it a mysterious figure named Smecher? 00:14:39.559 --> 00:14:42.039 But the consensus has shifted dramatically in 00:14:42.039 --> 00:14:45.539 the last decade. Towards Nefertiti. Yes. Leading 00:14:45.539 --> 00:14:48.460 Egyptologists like Aidan Dodson, Karakouni, Nicholas 00:14:48.460 --> 00:14:52.100 Reeves, they all argue that this ruler was Nefertiti 00:14:52.100 --> 00:14:54.919 herself. So the theory is the king dies, the 00:14:54.919 --> 00:14:57.580 heir is a child, the empire is crumbling because 00:14:57.580 --> 00:14:59.820 the new religion is unpopular and the economy 00:14:59.820 --> 00:15:03.620 is shaky. So mom steps up. She steps up not just 00:15:03.620 --> 00:15:06.659 as a regent, but as king. She adopts the full 00:15:06.659 --> 00:15:09.740 pharaonic titles. And we have a crucial piece 00:15:09.740 --> 00:15:12.460 of evidence in the epithets used by this female 00:15:12.460 --> 00:15:15.389 ruler. She calls herself... Effective for her 00:15:15.389 --> 00:15:18.090 husband. Effective for her husband? That sounds 00:15:18.090 --> 00:15:20.669 oddly specific. It's not... in memory of her 00:15:20.669 --> 00:15:22.990 husband or loving her husband. It's a very active 00:15:22.990 --> 00:15:25.549 phrase. It mirrors the way Akhenaten described 00:15:25.549 --> 00:15:28.669 himself as being effective for the Aten. It positions 00:15:28.669 --> 00:15:31.090 her as the legitimate successor carrying on his 00:15:31.090 --> 00:15:33.169 legacy, his work. But if she was the pharaoh, 00:15:33.330 --> 00:15:35.169 she wasn't just continuing the revolution blindly, 00:15:35.389 --> 00:15:37.610 was she? Because by the time Tut takes the throne, 00:15:37.870 --> 00:15:39.470 the move back to the old religion has already 00:15:39.470 --> 00:15:41.629 started. That is the fascinating nuance here. 00:15:41.789 --> 00:15:43.690 We tend to think of her as a fanatic because 00:15:43.690 --> 00:15:46.029 of the early years. But if she was the ruler 00:15:46.029 --> 00:15:48.350 Nevin of Ferraten, the archaeology suggests she 00:15:48.350 --> 00:15:50.429 was actually quite... pragmatic. She was doing 00:15:50.429 --> 00:15:54.029 damage control. That's the theory. There are 00:15:54.029 --> 00:15:56.889 signs that during this brief soul reign, maybe 00:15:56.889 --> 00:16:00.330 two or three years, she began reconciling with 00:16:00.330 --> 00:16:03.009 the Amun priesthood. She started the process 00:16:03.009 --> 00:16:05.970 of moving the court back to Thebes or Memphis. 00:16:06.289 --> 00:16:09.070 So she realized the Amarna experiment was failing. 00:16:09.289 --> 00:16:12.009 She realized it was unsustainable and she tried 00:16:12.009 --> 00:16:14.710 to pivot to save the dynasty for her stepson. 00:16:15.080 --> 00:16:17.220 That completely changes her character arc. She 00:16:17.220 --> 00:16:20.360 goes from the heretic queen to the savvy politician 00:16:20.360 --> 00:16:22.860 trying to keep the ship from sinking. She was 00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:25.700 the bridge. She took the heat, began the restoration, 00:16:26.019 --> 00:16:28.980 and tried to hand over a stabilized throne to 00:16:28.980 --> 00:16:30.659 Tutankhamun. There were sharks in the water, 00:16:30.740 --> 00:16:32.539 and this brings us to the moment that I think 00:16:32.539 --> 00:16:34.500 is the most cinematic in the whole timeline. 00:16:34.980 --> 00:16:37.840 The Hittite letter. This is the smoking gun for 00:16:37.840 --> 00:16:40.299 just how much chaos there was after the death 00:16:40.299 --> 00:16:42.559 of the king. Set the scene for us. Where does 00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:44.360 this letter come from? We have to look at the 00:16:44.360 --> 00:16:46.779 Hittite archives, which were found in their capital, 00:16:46.919 --> 00:16:50.019 Hattusa, in modern Turkey. The Hittites were 00:16:50.019 --> 00:16:53.240 the arch enemies of Egypt at this time. Their 00:16:53.240 --> 00:16:57.120 king, Sepululium I, was besieging Egyptian vassal 00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:00.720 states in Syria, and he was winning. And suddenly, 00:17:00.779 --> 00:17:03.879 a messenger arrives from Egypt. With a letter! 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:06.700 And the message is absolutely shocking. It is 00:17:06.700 --> 00:17:09.619 a letter from the Egyptian queen, whom the Hittites 00:17:09.619 --> 00:17:12.529 call Takamunzu. Which isn't a name. No, it's 00:17:12.529 --> 00:17:14.569 just a phonetic translation of the Egyptian title, 00:17:14.789 --> 00:17:17.230 Kahemet Nisu, the king's wife. And what does 00:17:17.230 --> 00:17:19.089 she say? I have the translation right here. She 00:17:19.089 --> 00:17:21.630 writes, my husband has died and I have no son. 00:17:22.230 --> 00:17:24.589 Simple enough. Clear. But then she drops the 00:17:24.589 --> 00:17:26.710 bombshell. They say about you that you have many 00:17:26.710 --> 00:17:28.569 sons. You might give me one of your sons to become 00:17:28.569 --> 00:17:31.920 my husband. Whoa, which is, it's... basically 00:17:31.920 --> 00:17:35.200 treason it is unprecedented egyptian royal women 00:17:35.200 --> 00:17:37.960 never married foreigners they viewed foreigners 00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:40.440 as chaotic and inferior for the queen of egypt 00:17:40.440 --> 00:17:42.640 to ask an enemy king for a prince to put on the 00:17:42.640 --> 00:17:44.779 throne of egypt it just reeks of desperation 00:17:44.779 --> 00:17:48.240 and she admits it she writes i would not wish 00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:50.440 to take one of my subjects as a husband i am 00:17:50.440 --> 00:17:54.059 afraid i am afraid that phrase is the key to 00:17:54.059 --> 00:17:56.839 the whole mystery what is she afraid of so who 00:17:56.839 --> 00:17:59.900 wrote it For a long time, people thought it was 00:17:59.900 --> 00:18:02.880 Ankasanamun, Tut's widow. That was the standard 00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:05.359 theory. But the timeline is a bit messy there. 00:18:06.119 --> 00:18:08.299 Ankasanamun was young, and while she had no son, 00:18:08.460 --> 00:18:11.339 she faced a different political landscape. But 00:18:11.339 --> 00:18:14.359 Nefertiti. If she is ruling as a female pharaoh 00:18:14.359 --> 00:18:17.119 after Akhenaten's death, she is in an incredibly 00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:19.559 precarious position. She has no son. She has 00:18:19.559 --> 00:18:21.960 powerful generals breathing down her neck. Exactly. 00:18:21.980 --> 00:18:24.339 When she says, I would not wish to take one of 00:18:24.339 --> 00:18:26.779 my subjects as a husband. Most historians think 00:18:26.779 --> 00:18:29.630 she's talking about I or Hormeb. The old guard. 00:18:29.789 --> 00:18:32.369 The deep state. They likely wanted to marry her 00:18:32.369 --> 00:18:34.529 to legitimize their own claim to the throne. 00:18:34.730 --> 00:18:36.910 So she is trying to outmaneuver them. She brings 00:18:36.910 --> 00:18:39.549 in a Hittite prince, marries him, and suddenly 00:18:39.549 --> 00:18:42.390 she has a husband who outranks her generals but 00:18:42.390 --> 00:18:45.730 owes his position entirely to her. It's a brilliant, 00:18:45.950 --> 00:18:49.309 desperate gambit. Nicholas Reeves is a big proponent 00:18:49.309 --> 00:18:52.650 of this theory. It fits the psychology of a ruler 00:18:52.650 --> 00:18:55.809 trying to hold on to independent power against 00:18:55.809 --> 00:18:59.950 an imminent coup. But it failed. Spectacularly. 00:18:59.950 --> 00:19:01.710 Sebuliuma was suspicious at first. He literally 00:19:01.710 --> 00:19:03.549 said, nothing like this has happened to me in 00:19:03.549 --> 00:19:06.369 my whole life. But eventually, he sent his son, 00:19:06.509 --> 00:19:09.190 Prince Zananza. Zananza never made it to Thebes. 00:19:09.210 --> 00:19:11.369 He was intercepted and killed en route. Murdered. 00:19:11.390 --> 00:19:13.930 Almost certainly. And you have to ask, who benefits? 00:19:14.049 --> 00:19:17.470 The Egyptian generals. I and Hormheb, who didn't 00:19:17.470 --> 00:19:19.549 want a foreigner on the throne. It seems very 00:19:19.549 --> 00:19:21.789 likely. So the alliance dies, the prince dies, 00:19:21.890 --> 00:19:25.230 and presumably shortly after, Nefertiti, or the 00:19:25.230 --> 00:19:28.009 female pharaoh, disappears for good. Yes. The 00:19:28.009 --> 00:19:30.509 record goes silent again. Tutankhamun takes the 00:19:30.509 --> 00:19:33.349 throne. Ai becomes his advisor and eventual successor. 00:19:33.670 --> 00:19:36.009 And Nefertiti vanishes into the sands of history. 00:19:36.170 --> 00:19:38.490 Which brings us to the final piece of the puzzle. 00:19:39.009 --> 00:19:42.109 The body. We have the mummies of almost all the 00:19:42.109 --> 00:19:44.410 great new kingdom pharaohs. We have Ramesses. 00:19:44.410 --> 00:19:47.470 We have Seti. We have Thutmose. Where is Nefertiti? 00:19:47.650 --> 00:19:49.930 That is the holy grail of modern Egyptology. 00:19:50.170 --> 00:19:52.710 The billion dollar question. We know where she 00:19:52.710 --> 00:19:55.069 was supposed to be buried, right? She had a suite 00:19:55.069 --> 00:19:57.329 of rooms prepared in the royal tomb at Amarna. 00:19:58.049 --> 00:20:00.049 There's even another unfinished tomb, number 00:20:00.049 --> 00:20:02.549 29, that might have been for her. But because 00:20:02.549 --> 00:20:04.490 the court abandoned Amarna and moved back to 00:20:04.490 --> 00:20:07.690 Thebes, she was never buried there. So her body, 00:20:07.769 --> 00:20:10.049 if it was preserved, would have been moved to 00:20:10.049 --> 00:20:12.069 the Valley of the Kings. Correct. There have 00:20:12.069 --> 00:20:14.650 been so many false alarms over the years. In 00:20:14.650 --> 00:20:19.710 1898, Victor Lareve found tomb KV35. And inside, 00:20:20.029 --> 00:20:21.950 he found two women lying next to each other, 00:20:22.049 --> 00:20:24.230 now known as the elder lady and the younger lady. 00:20:24.430 --> 00:20:27.569 And in the early 2000s, the Egyptologist Joanne 00:20:27.569 --> 00:20:30.269 Fletcher made global headlines claiming that 00:20:30.269 --> 00:20:33.309 the younger lady was Nefertiti. It was a huge 00:20:33.309 --> 00:20:35.950 documentary, very persuasive. I remember the 00:20:35.950 --> 00:20:37.829 wig theory. That was a big part of it. Yes, a 00:20:37.829 --> 00:20:40.509 Nubian -style wig was found nearby that seemed 00:20:40.509 --> 00:20:42.750 to match Nefertiti's style from her portraits. 00:20:43.250 --> 00:20:46.670 But science moves forward. In 2010, Dr. Zaki 00:20:46.670 --> 00:20:49.730 Hawass and his team conducted massive DNA sequencing 00:20:49.730 --> 00:20:52.509 on these royal mummies. And the results ruled 00:20:52.509 --> 00:20:55.549 her out. Definitively. The DNA showed that the 00:20:55.549 --> 00:20:58.250 younger lady was the biological mother of Tupin 00:20:58.250 --> 00:21:00.950 Kamen. And crucially, she was the full sister 00:21:00.950 --> 00:21:03.819 of Akhenaten. Both were children of Amenhotep 00:21:03.819 --> 00:21:06.460 III and Queen Tai. And since we know Nefertiti 00:21:06.460 --> 00:21:08.779 wasn't Akhenaten's sister. She cannot be the 00:21:08.779 --> 00:21:10.779 younger lady. The younger lady is likely a minor 00:21:10.779 --> 00:21:12.599 wife or sister wife whose name we aren't sure 00:21:12.599 --> 00:21:15.619 of. Maybe Nebetta or Beketaten. But it's not 00:21:15.619 --> 00:21:18.259 Nefertiti. Okay, so strike one. What about KV21? 00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:20.799 This is a tomb containing two female mummies, 00:21:20.920 --> 00:21:25.460 KV21A and KV21B. KV21B is interesting. She is 00:21:25.460 --> 00:21:27.660 headless, unfortunately, but her posture is key. 00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:30.920 Her left arm is bent over her chest, as if holding 00:21:30.920 --> 00:21:33.660 a fly whisk or scepter. A royal pose. A pose 00:21:33.660 --> 00:21:35.839 reserved for queens. And who was she buried with? 00:21:36.599 --> 00:21:39.940 KV21A. The DNA suggests KV21A might be the mother 00:21:39.940 --> 00:21:42.039 of the two fetuses found in Tutankhamen's tomb. 00:21:42.420 --> 00:21:45.279 That would make KV21A Ankhesenamon Nefertiti's 00:21:45.279 --> 00:21:47.400 daughter. So we have a potential daughter buried 00:21:47.400 --> 00:21:50.450 with an older royal woman. It mirrors the KV35 00:21:50.450 --> 00:21:52.990 burial where Queen Tai was found buried with 00:21:52.990 --> 00:21:55.670 her daughter, the younger lady. So it is very 00:21:55.670 --> 00:21:59.210 possible that KV21B is Nefertiti, but the DNA 00:21:59.210 --> 00:22:02.549 was too degraded to give 100 % match. It's suggestive, 00:22:02.549 --> 00:22:05.109 but not conclusive. We just don't know for sure. 00:22:05.269 --> 00:22:07.009 Yeah. And we have to mention the theory that 00:22:07.009 --> 00:22:09.430 broke the internet in 2015, the hidden chamber. 00:22:09.730 --> 00:22:12.509 Nicholas Reeves again. He looked at the high 00:22:12.509 --> 00:22:14.809 -resolution scans of the walls of Tutinkham's 00:22:14.809 --> 00:22:17.099 burial chamber. and noticed what looked like 00:22:17.099 --> 00:22:19.660 ghosts of doorways beneath the plaster and paint. 00:22:19.859 --> 00:22:22.740 The theory being that Tut died so suddenly, they 00:22:22.740 --> 00:22:24.759 just buried him in the antechamber of a much 00:22:24.759 --> 00:22:28.019 larger, grander tomb Nefertiti's tomb. That's 00:22:28.019 --> 00:22:30.460 a beautiful theory. It explained why Tut's tomb 00:22:30.460 --> 00:22:33.059 is so small and cramped for a pharaoh. The world 00:22:33.059 --> 00:22:35.480 held its breath. They brought in ground -penetrating 00:22:35.480 --> 00:22:37.920 radar. The first scans were promising. They seemed 00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:40.559 to show voids. But the second and third rounds? 00:22:41.220 --> 00:22:44.579 Negative. No voids, no hidden rooms, just solid 00:22:44.579 --> 00:22:48.059 bedrock. That is heartbreaking. It is. It means 00:22:48.059 --> 00:22:50.400 she is still out there. Maybe in a royal cache 00:22:50.400 --> 00:22:52.160 we haven't found yet. Maybe she's one of the 00:22:52.160 --> 00:22:54.880 dozens of unidentified mummies sitting on a shelf 00:22:54.880 --> 00:22:57.880 in the Cairo Museum basement just labeled Unknown 00:22:57.880 --> 00:23:01.200 Woman D. It is crazy to think that the woman 00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:04.839 who ruled the world, who reshaped an entire empire, 00:23:05.099 --> 00:23:08.539 is just lost. But in a way, she isn't lost at 00:23:08.539 --> 00:23:10.920 all. Because we have the bust. We have the bust. 00:23:11.390 --> 00:23:13.349 But hopefully after this deep dive, when you 00:23:13.349 --> 00:23:15.569 look at that bust, you don't just see a pretty 00:23:15.569 --> 00:23:18.210 face. No, I see the woman who walked into the 00:23:18.210 --> 00:23:20.730 Temple of Karnak and told the most powerful priesthood 00:23:20.730 --> 00:23:23.769 in the world, you're fired. You see the mother 00:23:23.769 --> 00:23:26.240 who lost at least one. maybe three daughters 00:23:26.240 --> 00:23:28.839 to plague, and still held the throne together. 00:23:29.099 --> 00:23:31.480 You see the mistress of the two lands in year 00:23:31.480 --> 00:23:34.599 16 defying the odds while the empire collapsed 00:23:34.599 --> 00:23:37.160 around her. And you see the desperate ruler writing 00:23:37.160 --> 00:23:39.940 to her enemy, I'm afraid, trying to save her 00:23:39.940 --> 00:23:42.079 dynasty from the men who wanted to take it from 00:23:42.079 --> 00:23:44.339 her. It really changes the experience. She wasn't 00:23:44.339 --> 00:23:46.920 a model, she was a player. Maybe the biggest 00:23:46.920 --> 00:23:49.779 player of the entire 18th dynasty. Absolutely. 00:23:50.240 --> 00:23:52.779 She reigned during the wealthiest, most artistic, 00:23:52.859 --> 00:23:55.019 and most dangerous moment in ancient Egyptian 00:23:55.019 --> 00:23:57.759 history. Her legacy is the revolution itself. 00:23:58.079 --> 00:24:00.319 And she is still with us. She's in movies. She's 00:24:00.319 --> 00:24:02.779 in books. She's in video games. We are still 00:24:02.779 --> 00:24:05.240 obsessed with her. Because she represents a paradox. 00:24:05.700 --> 00:24:09.460 The perfect, static, serene beauty on the outside 00:24:09.460 --> 00:24:12.920 and the ruthless, dynamic, tragic reality on 00:24:12.920 --> 00:24:14.940 the inside. So here's a final thought for you 00:24:14.940 --> 00:24:17.059 to chew on. We spend millions of dollars trying 00:24:17.059 --> 00:24:19.440 to find her mummy. We want the physical proof. 00:24:19.869 --> 00:24:23.650 But ask yourself, if we found her, if we found 00:24:23.650 --> 00:24:26.210 a dried, wrapped body in a glass case, would 00:24:26.210 --> 00:24:29.309 it actually add to her legend? Or has the idea 00:24:29.309 --> 00:24:32.150 of Nefertiti, that immortal face in Berlin, become 00:24:32.150 --> 00:24:33.990 more powerful than the human being ever was? 00:24:34.190 --> 00:24:36.130 That's the power of art. It eclipses history. 00:24:36.349 --> 00:24:38.390 Thanks for diving deep with us. We'll catch you 00:24:38.390 --> 00:24:38.809 on the next one.