Talatat: Portrait of Nefertiti
Unknown Artist
c. 1353–1347 BCE
Medium
painted sandstone
Dimensions
22 × 22.7 cm
Classification
Sculpture
Department
Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Accession Number
1959.188
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The son of Amenhotep III, Akenhaten, 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—from which this relief comes—before he moved his capital to El Amarna. For reasons yet unknown, the figure of the Queen Nefertiti appears in these reliefs far more often that that of the king. Ironically, the Aten temples were dismantled to be used as foundations and fill for ...