Cleveland Museum of Art

Talatat: Nefertiti Offers to the Aten

Date

1353–1347 BCE

Medium

painted sandstone

Culture

Egypt, Karnak, New Kingdom (1540–1069 BCE), Dynasty 18, reign of Akhenaten (1351–1334 BCE)

Department

Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The son of Amenhotep III, Akenaten, brought about the short-lived "monotheistic" revolution in Egyptian religion near the end of Dynasty 18. The young king constructed a temple complex to the Aten, the Sun Disk, at Karnak—where this relief originated—before he moved his capital to El Amarna. For reasons unknown, the figure of the Queen Nefertiti appears in these reliefs far more often than that of the king. Ironically, the Aten temples were dismantled to be used as foundations and fill for adaptations to the Great Temple of Amun, whom the Aten had briefly displaced. Just in front of her nostril is the ankh or symbol of life, being given to her by Aten the sun, so that she may breathe in the god's gift of life.

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