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This lecture will be available to view until 1 June 2026

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Overview

Watch on Demand | One-Hour Lecture


Nefertiti, Chief Royal Wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, remains one of the most recognisable figures of ancient Egypt, her painted limestone bust in Berlin having become an enduring global icon. 

Yet her fame rests not only on modern discovery, but on the extraordinary historical moment in which she lived. During the Amarna period of the mid-fourteenth century BCE, Egypt underwent a dramatic religious, artistic, and ideological transformation.

Akhenaten’s promotion of the Aten challenged long-established polytheistic traditions, while royal imagery departed strikingly from earlier conventions, favouring intimacy and fluidforms- here, Nefertiti appears not merely as consort, but as an active participant in ritual, diplomacy, and the visual language of kingship. Alongside her, other royal women are reflected in reliefs, sculpture, and courtly art of remarkable refinement, offering rare insight into gender, authority, and belief during a time of profound change.

In this lecture, Egyptologist Lucia Gahlin examines the roles of Nefertiti and her contemporaries, exploring how power, religion, and identity are articulated through some of ancient Egypt’s most exquisite surviving artworks.

LECTURER

Biography

Lucia Gahlin is an Egyptologist based in the UK with over 20 years experience of leading tours to Egypt, and to collections of Egyptian antiquities in museums around the world. She has a strong personal interest in the art, archaeology, literature and architecture of ancient Egypt, and is the author of chapters and books, such as ‘Egypt: gods, myths and religion’. Lucia holds a First Class Honours Degree in Egyptology/Ancient History from University College London. Her postgraduate research took her into university teaching, curatorial work in the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology in London, and archaeological excavations in Egypt. She has taught Egyptology for the Continuing Education departments of a number of universities in the UK, and has taught undergraduates at University College London and the Universities of Warwick and Bristol. Lucia is an Honorary Research Associate at University College London’s Institute of Archaeology. She continues to teach occasional continuing education courses in Bristol, and lectures widely.

Lucia Gahlin

Egyptologist