Nefertiti - mother of Tutankhamun?

Dr Gabolde is by no means the first to suggest that Nefertiti was the mother of Tutankhamun, but his theory on the BBC website is well presented. In fact the archaeological evidence concerning Tutankhamun's parentage is extremely scant:

• Tutankhamun succeed to the throne at the age of nine so his claim must have been based on secure royal lineage


• A relief declares Tutankhamun to be the son of Amenhotep III. Dr Zahi Hawass has said he believes this should be interprepted as being the grandson of Amenhotep III ie Akhenaten. (Not all Egyptologists agree.)


• A relief in the Royal Tomb at Amarna (see my Meketaten for details) depicts a babe in arms while Akhenaten and Nefertiti mourn the death of Meketaten


• Addtionally, there is evidence that the status of Akhenaten's secondary wife Kiya improved materially towards the end of his reign.

The tomb of Maya, Tutankhamun's wet nurse has been discovered at Saqqara. There are a number of depictions of Tutankhamun (or rather Tutankhaten as he was known as a child) on the walls. In the published accounts, none of the reliefs or inscriptions shed more light on the identity of Tutankhamun's mother.

Princess Meketaten, daughter of Pharaoh Akhenaten and Nefertiti was buried in Room Gamma of the Royal Tomb at Amarna. A frieze shows the grieving parents hovering over the body of a young woman whom we know to be Meketaten from another frieze. Meketaten's sarcophagus was found in the chamber but empty of her mummy.

The frieze also shows a young woman hovering outside the mourning chamber, with a baby in her arms. The tomb was been badly damaged in Pharaonic times to suppress references to the Amarna family, probably by tomb raiders in history and by looters since the tomb was discovered in Victorian times. The name of the baby has been lost. In my Meketaten lens I report on the paper by Jacobus van Dijk of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen who argues that the baby must be female but Dr Marc Gabolde disagrees. Firstly he argues that the baby cannot be Nefertiti. We know that she was only aged between 9 and 12 when she died. Most probably she was at the lower end of this range (ie age 9) as her sarcophagus is only about 1m long. Dr Gabolde argues reasonably that Meketaten was too young to be the mother of the baby shown. In this he agrees with Jacobus van Dijk.

Dr Gabolde's theory then diverges from that of Jacobus van Dijk. He argues that the gap in the inscription where the name of the baby was inscribed is so long it has to be a royal child, and therefore of Nefertiti. This is the first point on which I think he may be going beyond the available evidence. An alternative mother is Meritaten who was probably also married to Akhenaten. While Akhenaten had several secondary wives, most notably Kiya, Nefertiti is known for guarding her status jealously and did not permit children of other wives to be shown alongside her. She would probably have relaxed this prohibition for her daughter, Meritaten, but it is reasonable to conclude that the baby's mother was either Nefertiti or Meritaten.

The next leap in Dr Gabolde's argument is that he determines that the baby was male. While this is possible, notwithstanding the arguments that Jacobus van Dijk advances that the baby was a girl, I can see nowhere in Dr Gabolde's argument that suggests reasons why the baby shown in the frieze was a boy.

Dr Gabolde goes on to consider evidence that Tutankhamun (or Tutankhaten as he was known before he came to the throne) had one, possibly two sisters. This is relevant only if the baby shown was a boy; however it only serves to eliminate Meketaten as Tutankhamun's mother.

Personally I think:

1. An actual royal baby is depicted in the frieze.


2. Meketaten was almost certainly too young to conceive and carry a baby to term. She was certainly too small to have given birth successfully and, in the unlikey event that she was the babe's mother, it is unsurprising if she died in chilldbirth.


3. The mother was either Nefertiti or Meritaten. There is only a remote chance that the baby was Meketaten's.


4. There is little evidence either way concerning the sex of the baby, although I incline to the view expressed by Jacobus van Dijk that the baby was a girl


5. While we cannot know for certain without fresh archaeological evidence, personally I think the baby depicted is an unknown princess. Three other of Nefertiti's daughters died shortly after Meketaten and it seems likely that the baby shown died in infancy.

I have struggled with a chronology of Neferttii's children. My best guess is shown on my lens about Nefertiti's daughters. In that chronology Nefertiti could have had another baby just before the death of Meketaten. I've seen other chronologies though in which Meketaten's death is about the same time as the birth of Neferneferure and Setepenre. In those chronologies the baby could not have been Nefertiti's unless it was a twin - and the frieze doesn't depict twins.

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