QUEEN OF 3500 YEARS AGO.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 31 January 1925, Page 14

QUEEN OF 3500 YEARS AGO.

A woTm-.n whose amazing beauty enchants the eye and the mind, although she died in Egypt 3506 years ago, lias recently been causing a sensation in the third Egyptian room f of the British Museum. She is Queen hoi ret-I**, wile of the Pharaoh Akhnaton, and mother-in-law of Tutankhamen. The almost life-size coloured bust which has been presented to the museum is a replica of the original found in the ruins of Tel-el-Amarna and now in the Berlin Museum. “She is the finest example, of Egyptian portraiture.” said Dr. Hall, keeper of the Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum, to a newspaper reporter. CURIOUS CROWN.

Famous archaeologists and artists who have seen the bust agree that- the queen must have been the most beautiful. woman of antiquity, and that as a work of art her portrait bust is the most living thing that lias come down from the ancient world. Nefret-iti’s small head, set on a long, slim neck, is surmounted hv the curious high crown which her husband, Akhnaton, evidently invented for her and her daughters. There is a sad half-smile on her face, ancl the general impression is that of a woman ot great delicacy and breeding. Her personality is surrounded by mystery. Her face is not typically Egyptian. Some experts thinks she was a Syrian, others even suggest that she niay have come from Europe. A, strange fact about this .remarkable worlds that the left eye socket is vacant. Archaeologists are divided between the belief hold bv Mr. Arthur Wigall, the great authority on this period, that the queen was blind in one eye, or thatthe sculptor did not finish' liis work. ROCK TOMBS OF AMARNA.

Nefret-iti is linked with the first roval love affair pictured by artists Earlier and later queens of Egypt are sculptured beside then* husbands m conventional attitudes, butiAkhnaton commanded his artists . at El Amarna to paint himself and his wife not -is king and queen of Egypt, hut as human he. in r -\\ The. rock tombs of Amarnaare. full of realistic reliefs showing Akhnaton find his beautiful wife sitting together affectionately holding hands rheio is one picture of Nefret-iti sitting on her husband’s knee. The mstory of he ideal City of the Sun bruit by Akhiiaton 3500 years ago, so that he and his wife could experiment with Utopia, suggests that this delicate, aru loci *■ tic woman was also one of the first, greet lovers in history.