# Nefertiti holds the public office of Great Royal Wife with cartouches and a unique Aten titulary

Date: 1352

## The fact

[Nefertiti](/people/nefertiti) is attested as Great Royal Wife of [Akhenaten](/people/akhenaten) with cartouches and repeated officiating scenes in Karnak talatat and Amarna reliefs, conventionally in the 1350s–1340s BCE. It is not a co-regency unless separately proved.

## Context

Egyptian queenship is an office, not a modern ministry. Her prominence is unusual and therefore historically load-bearing. [Tutankhamun](/people/tutankhamun)’s later restoration does not unwrite these scenes.

Nefertiti is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Met and Amarna Project independently publish the titulary and scenes.

Official or archival record: Met Heilbrunn — Amarna (https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/amar/hd_amar.htm; Metropolitan Museum of Art).

## Significance

Visibility/rights-adjacent improving path. Medium confidence. Direct contribution to her own named office.

Office is not biography. Birth and death remain unfixed.

## What is established and what is not

Established: she held and displayed the office of Great Royal Wife in Aten cult scenes. Not established: sole reign.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Nefertiti: https://factrail.ai/people/nefertiti

## Drivers

- Protection of Minority Rights: https://factrail.ai/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights

## Sources

- https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/amar/hd_amar.htm
- https://www.amarnaproject.com/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/eg-new-kingdom-queen-as-political-office