Concept

Neferneferuaten

Summary
Ankhkheperure-Merit-Neferkheperure/Waenre/Aten Neferneferuaten (nfr-nfrw-jtn) was a name used to refer to a female pharaoh who reigned toward the end of the Amarna Period during the Eighteenth Dynasty. Her gender is confirmed by feminine traces occasionally found in the name and by the epithet Akhet-en-hyes ("Effective for her husband"), incorporated into one version of her nomen (birth name) cartouche. She is distinguished from the king Smenkhkare who used the same throne name, Ankhkheperure, by the presence of epithets in both cartouches. She is suggested to have been either Meritaten or, more likely, Nefertiti. If this person is Nefertiti ruling as sole pharaoh, it has been theorized by Egyptologist and archaeologist Dr. Zahi Hawass that her reign was marked by the fall of Amarna and relocation of the capital back to the traditional city of Thebes. There is no broad consensus as to the succession order of Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten. The period from the 13th year of Akhenaten's reign to the ascension of Tutankhaten is very murky. The reigns of Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten were very brief and left little monumental or inscriptional evidence to draw a clear picture of political events. Adding to this, Neferneferuaten shares her prenomen (throne name) with Smenkhkare, and her nomen (birth name) with Nefertiti/Neferneferuaten Nefertiti making identification very difficult at times. With little dated evidence to fix their reigns with any certainty, the order depends on how the evidence is interpreted. Many encyclopedic sources and atlases will show Smenkhkare succeeding Akhenaten on the basis of tradition dating back to 1845, and some still conflate Smenkhkare with Neferneferuaten. The lack of unique names continues to cause problems in books and papers written before the early 1980s: an object might be characterized as bearing the name of Smenkhkare, when if in fact, the name was "Ankhkheperure", it could be related to one of two people.
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