The Mystery of Queen Nefertiti | Lost Treasures of Egypt

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NARRATOR: Nestling on the east bank of the Nile, Nefertiti's capital city covered over 3,000 acres, and was home to up to 50,000 people. What is now barren landscape was once one of the greatest cities in the ancient world. And from these palaces and temples, the royal couple ruled over all of Egypt.

She doesn't appear to be buried here, but does this place hold clues to the fate of the missing queen? Nefertiti is famous today because of this iconic bust of her. She has one of the most well-known faces in all of ancient Egypt. This is about the spot that the bust was actually found.

We're in the house and the workshop of a sculptor who was probably called Thutmose. This is where the Nefertiti bust was originally created. It's one version of Nefertiti's official portrait. She may herself have signed off on this image. But really, we have no idea what she looked like in real life.

NARRATOR: Nefertiti's early life is also still a mystery. Her father was probably Ay, vizier to pharaoh Amenhotep III, so she would have been brought up in a royal palace. By the age of just 15, she married Amenhotep's second son, the new pharaoh Akhenaten, and bore him six daughters. As his queen, Nefertiti became the most powerful woman in all of Egypt.

Yet Nefertiti's ultimate fate remains a mystery that occupies archaeologists all over Egypt.