Queen Nefertiti is the undisputed icon of ancient beauty, yet the 3,300-year-old painted bust that made her famous is defined by contradictions: a missing left eye, and, as CT scans in 1992 and 2006 revealed, the face of an older woman with creases, hollow cheeks, and a bump on her nose carved into the limestone core beneath the smooth stucco. This episode traces her mortal life as Akhenaten's great royal wife during the radical shift to Atenism, the quarry inscription proving she was still in power in year 16 of his reign, and the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose in Amarna around 1345 BC, where synthetic blue frit, orpiment, and beeswax eyes were engineered for a modello that was never meant to be seen by the public.

From there the story turns to the bust's dramatic afterlife: Ludwig Borchardt's 1912 excavation, the dimly lit room, the un ...