Nefertiti

Her name meant "The Beautiful One Has Come," but she was far more than an aesthetic adornment to the court. As the chief consort of Akhenaten, she ruled alongside him as an equal partner in the great religious revolution. She stood beside him on the palace balcony, presenting gold collars to the elite and offering directly to the Aten sun disc.

Her artists portrayed her in positions of power usually reserved for kings. Reliefs on the temple blocks show her riding her own chariot and striking down foreign captives, carrying the full authority of the crown.

Following her husband's death, some scholars believe she assumed the male title of pharaoh, ruling under the name Smenkhkare or Neferneferuaten. She fought a desperate, final battle to preserve the revolution before the old court asserted itself.

Her painted stucco-limestone bust, discovered in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, survived as a timeless image of human symmetry. She stood at the center of the Amarna storm, a powerful woman who shaped the spiritual destiny of the Nile Valley.