Akhenaten and Nefertiti reigned together at Amarna as the sole earthly conduit to the Aten, and their daughters Meritaten, Meketaten, and Ankhesenamun were born into the new faith they imposed upon Egypt.
Ay, who bore the title 'God's Father' at Amarna, is widely identified as Nefertiti's father, the provincial official whose daughter rose to become the most powerful queen in Egyptian history.
⚠ Ay's parentage of Nefertiti is inferred from his title 'God's Father' and his prominence at court, but no inscription explicitly names him as her father. Some scholars propose alternative identifications.
Nefertiti is named alongside Akhenaten on the boundary stelae that marked the limits of Akhetaten, the sacred city where she presided over the Aten's open-air temples as co-regent.
Nefertiti stands beside Akhenaten beneath the Aten's outstretched rays, both receiving ankhs pressed to their faces — the only queen depicted as equal co-recipient of the sun disk's life-giving power.
Nefertiti's name appears alongside Akhenaten's in the framework of the Great Hymn to the Aten, the queen named as co-recipient of the sun disk's grace and co-intermediary between god and people.
After the fall of Amarna, Horemheb's agents chiseled Nefertiti's name and image from temple walls alongside Akhenaten's, consigning her to the same oblivion that swallowed the heretic king.
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