# D. The scholarship on Neferneferuaten's identity: Allen, Dodson, Reeves, Van der Perre, Harris, Samson (and additional targets: Allen 2016, Dodson 2009/2020b, Reeves 2023, Johnson 2015/2020, Harris 1992, Kawai 2023, Brown 2022, Dietrich 2024)

All full-text copies obtained are in `sources/` (each file carries a header with URL and retrieval date).

Legend for the reading log: **(a)** read in full; **(b)** read part / preview / abstract (pages stated); **(c)** known only through citation by another author. Never treat (c) as (a).

## Reading log

| # | Work | Status | Copy in sources/ | Notes |
|---|------|--------|------------------|-------|
| 1 | Allen, "The Amarna Succession", in Brand & Cooper (eds), *Causing His Name to Live* (Brill 2009) 9-20 | **(a) read in full** (all 17 pp. of the author's preprint PDF, incl. all 71 notes) | Allen_2009_Amarna_Succession.pdf / .txt | The circulating preprint (Acrobat file dated Aug 2009, "James P. Allen, Brown University"), identical in substance to the Brill chapter; page refs below are to the preprint's PDF pages (P1-P17), which do not coincide with Brill's pp. 9-20. |
| 2 | Allen, "Two altered inscriptions of the late Amarna period", JARCE 25 (1988) 117-126 | **(c)** citation only (via Allen 2009 nn. 5, 12, 24; Dodson 2020) | — | JSTOR-only; not obtainable here. Allen 2009 n. 24 states that his 1988 argument on the KV55 coffin foot-inscription "is superseded" by Grimm 2001. |
| 3 | Allen, "Nefertiti and Smenkh-ka-re", GM 141 (1994) 7-17 | **(c)** citation only (Allen 2009 nn. 3, 18) | — | Not online. Allen 2009 n. 18 cites GM 141 p. 9 for the "Akhenaten-less" epithets (mr jtn; pA Hm Axt-jtn; HqA). |
| 4 | Allen, "The original owner of Tutankhamun's canopic coffins" | **(c)** citation only | — | CORRECTION: it is in *Millions of Jubilees: Studies in Honor of David P. Silverman*, ed. Z. Hawass & J. Houser Wegner (Cairo: SCA, 2010), vol. I, 27-41 — NOT in *Joyful in Thebes* (2015). Confirmed by Allen's Brown CV (vivo.brown.edu/docs/j/jpallen_cv.pdf, retrieved 2026-09-14) and Allen 2009 n. 66 ("to appear in the forthcoming Festschrift for David P. Silverman"). Content per Allen 2009 n. 66: the four canopic coffinettes were made for Neferneferuaten as king. |
| 5 | Allen, "The Amarna Succession Revised", GM 249 (2016) 9-13 | **(c)** citation only (Dietrich 2024; Dodson 2020) — full text not obtainable (GM not online; Dialnet record says "Texto completo no disponible") | — | Existence confirmed from Allen's CV and the Göttingen GM 249 table of contents. Reversal of the 2009 order reported by Dietrich 2024 (see below). |
| 6 | Harris, "Nefertiti rediviva", AcOr 35 (1973) 5-13 | **(a) read in full** (scanned PDF from journals.uio.no, OCR'd locally; all 9 pp. incl. notes) | Harris_1973_Nefertiti_rediviva_AcOr35_journals.uio.no.pdf / .txt (OCR) | Open access at the University of Oslo journal server. |
| 7 | Harris, "Nefernefruaten regnans", AcOr 36 (1974) 11-21 | **(c)** citation only | — | Vol. 36 (1974) IS on journals.uio.no (issue 467) but this article is NOT among the digitized items; the site search for "regnans"/"Nefernefruaten" returns only the 1973 and 1977 papers. Known via Allen 2009 nn. 5, 9 (catalogue entries p. 13 (1a), p. 17 (2a, 2d)) and Reeves 2001. |
| 8 | Harris, "Akhenaten or Nefertiti?", AcOr 38 (1977) 5-10 | **(a) read in full** (scanned PDF, OCR'd; 6 pp.) | Harris_1977_Akhenaten_or_Nefertiti_AcOr38_journals.uio.no.pdf / .txt | Open access at journals.uio.no (article 5129). |
| 9 | Harris, "Neferneferuaten", GM 4 (1973) 15-17 | **(b)** the core paragraph quoted verbatim in Reeves 2001 pp. 170-171 (checked there) | — | Reeves quotes the key passage in full; otherwise (c). |
| 10 | Samson, "Nefertiti's regality", JEA 63 (1977) 88-97 | **(c)** citation only | — | JSTOR (3856305) and SAGE both return 403 here; Wayback copies unusable. Known through Reeves 2001, Dodson 2020, Allen 2009. Dodson's own reply: "Nefertiti's Regality: A Comment", JEA 67 (1981) 179 (per his 2020 bibliography). |
| 11 | Samson, "Akhenaten's coregent Ankhkheperure-Nefernefruaten", GM 53 (1982) 51-54 | **(c)** citation only | — | Not online. |
| 12 | Samson, *Amarna, City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Nefertiti as Pharaoh* (Aris & Phillips 1978) | **(c)** | — | archive.org holds only the 1972 first edition (lending, no text access). |
| 13 | Reeves, *Akhenaten, Egypt's False Prophet* (Thames & Hudson 2001) | **(a)** succession chapters read in full: ch. 8 "Royal Women" (pp. 156-177) and ch. 9 "Restoration and Oblivion" (pp. 178-193), plus the Tomb 55 section of ch. 3/4 | Reeves_2001_Akhenaten_Egypts_False_Prophet_archive.org_djvu.txt (full OCR of the book) | Full OCR text from archive.org (opensource upload). |
| 14 | Reeves, "The Burial of Nefertiti?" ARTP Occasional Paper 1 (2015) | **(a) read** (Factum Arte PDF, 51 pp.; text extracted) | Reeves_2015_Burial_of_Nefertiti_ARTP_OccPaper1_factum-arte.pdf / .txt | Official mirror on factum-arte.com. |
| 15 | Reeves, "Tutankhamun's Mask Reconsidered", BES 19 (2015) 511-526 | **(c)** citation only; but see #16 which summarises and supplements it | — | Only on academia.edu (403). |
| 16 | Reeves, "The Gold Mask of Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten", JAEI 7:4 (2015) 77-79 | **(a) read in full** | Reeves_2015_JAEI_Gold_Mask_of_Ankhkheperure_Neferneferuaten.pdf / .txt | Recovered from the Wayback Machine copy of the JAEI galley (the live JAEI site is behind an anti-bot wall). |
| 17 | Reeves (& Ballard), "The Decorated North Wall in the Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV 62) (The Burial of Nefertiti? II)", ARTP Occ. Paper 3 (2019) | **(c)** abstract/summary only via search-engine snippets and Lightbody 2021 | — | academia.edu only. |
| 18 | Reeves, *The Complete Tutankhamun* (1990) | **(b)** consulted the 1990 edition's text for his then view of KV55/Smenkhkare | Reeves_1990_Complete_Tutankhamun_archive.org_djvu.txt | The 2022 revised edition is not obtainable. |
| 19 | Reeves, "The Phantom 'Temple of Ankhkheperure in Thebes'", in Pitkin (ed.), *The Overseer of Works in Memphis and Thebes: Studies in Honour of Nigel Strudwick* (Abercromby 2023) 263-274 | **(c)** via Dietrich 2024 and academia abstract (if retrievable) | — | |
| 20 | Dodson, *Amarna Sunset* (AUC Press 2009) | **(a)** succession chapters (chs 1-3 and Appendix 3) read from the full OCR text | Dodson_AmarnaSunset_archive.org_djvu.txt (2009 edition, verified from copyright page) | archive.org opensource upload. |
| 21 | Dodson, *Amarna Sunset*, revised edition (AUC Press 2018) | **(c)** — no copy obtainable (archive.org has only the 2009 ed.; Google Books API rate-limited) | — | Changes inferred from Dodson 2020 (which post-dates and supersedes it) — flagged as such. |
| 22 | Dodson, "Amarna Sunset: the late-Amarna succession revisited", in Ikram & Dodson (eds), *Beyond the Horizon: Studies ... in Honour of Barry J. Kemp* (SCA 2009) 29-43 | **(c)** Bristol portal record only (no PDF attached) | — | |
| 23 | Dodson, *Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt* (AUC Press 2020) | **(a)** Introduction and chs 3-4 (pp. 63-132) read in full; ch. 5 and chronology consulted | Dodson_2020_Nefertiti_Queen_and_Pharaoh_archive.org_djvu.txt (full OCR of the book) | |
| 24 | Dodson, "On the graffito in Theban Tomb 139", in *Guardian of Ancient Egypt: Studies in Honor of Zahi Hawass* (Prague 2020) 357-365 | see below (attempted via Bristol portal) | — | |
| 25 | Van der Perre, "Nefertiti's last documented reference (for now)", in Seyfried (ed.), *In the Light of Amarna* (2012) 195-197 | **(c)** | — | academia/ResearchGate only (403). |
| 26 | Van der Perre, "The Year 16 graffito of Akhenaten in Dayr Abu Hinnis", JEH 7 (2014) 67-108 | **(b)** publisher's abstract (Brill/Crossref) only; contents otherwise via Dodson 2020, Dietrich 2024 | — | Brill paywalled; not in Lirias (KU Leuven) — Lirias holds only her 2015 PhD thesis record ("Stone for Amarna", no open bitstream) and a 2015 chapter "Quarry Marks of the Amarna Period" (no bitstream). |
| 27 | Dietrich, "Rethinking New Kingdom Coregencies and a Case Study on the Amarna Period", in Dogaer et al. (eds), *CRE 2023* (Archaeopress 2024) 92-115 | **(a)** read (OA PDF from OEAW ePub) | Dietrich_2024_CRE2023_Rethinking_NK_Coregencies_Amarna_oeaw.pdf / .txt | Used as the up-to-date secondary map of the debate and as the only accessible witness to Allen 2016, Reeves 2023, Johnson 2020, Kawai 2023. |
| 28 | Lightbody, "The Tutankhamun-Nefertiti joint burial hypothesis: a critique", JAEA 5 (2021) | **(a)** obtained (OA PDF) | Lightbody_2021_JAEA5_Tut_Nefertiti_joint_burial_critique.pdf | Secondary; used only for the radar-survey chronology. |
| 29 | Johnson, KMT 26 (2015) 22-29; Johnson, Fs Hawass (2020) 759-769; Harris 1992 (After Tut'ankhamun 55-72); Kawai 2023 (Wonderful Things 109-121); Brown, JARCE 58 (2022) 287-289 | **(c)** all citation-only (via Dietrich 2024 / Dodson 2020) | — | No open copy could be reached. |

(Log continues to be updated below as items are resolved.)

---

## 1. James P. Allen

### 1.1 Allen 2009, "The Amarna Succession" — read in full (a)

**Reconstruction (explicit sequence).**
1. Akhenaten reigns to Regnal Year 17 (two Year-17 dockets: one from the Royal Tomb burial complex; the other, Pendlebury CoA III pl. 95 no. 279, originally "Regnal Year 17: honey [...]", erased and relabelled "Regnal Year 1: w[ine ...]") (P5 with n. 14).
2. In Years 16-17 Akhenaten appoints a **female coregent, Ankh(et)kheperure Neferneferuaten**, whom Allen identifies as **Akhenaten's fourth daughter Neferneferuaten-tasherit ("Neferneferuaten Jr.")** — NOT Nefertiti and NOT Meritaten (P14-P15). She was also Akhenaten's wife ("effective for her husband") (P15).
3. Neferneferuaten reigns 3 years in total (highest date: Year 3, Pawah graffito TT 139), partly overlapping Akhenaten and partly as **sole ruler** after his death; the Amun cult in "the temple of Ankhkheperure in Thebes", the "Akhenaten-less" epithets (mr jtn, pA Hm Axt-jtn, HqA) and the Osirian epithet Axt n h(j).s belong to the sole-reign phase (P5, P15, n. 18).
4. **Smenkhkare Djeserkheperu follows Neferneferuaten** (i.e. order Akhenaten → Neferneferuaten → Smenkhkare), reigns "less than a year"; his only date, the Year 1 docket "from the house of Smenkhkare" (Pendlebury pl. 86 no. 35), "could come from the reign of Tutankhamun" (P5 with n. 16, P15-P16). He takes over Neferneferuaten's prenomen element Ankhkheperure and her chief queen Meritaten, and appropriates her burial equipment (canopic coffinettes etc.), i.e. "denied her a pharaonic burial" (P16 and n. 66).
5. Tutankhamun accedes 1-2 years after Akhenaten's death, aged 10-11, born in Akhenaten's Year 9-10 (P6, P16).
6. **KV55 body = Smenkhkare**, a son of Amenhotep III and Tiye and younger brother of Akhenaten; **Tutankhamun's father = Smenkhkare**; Thutmose IV = Tutankhamun's great-grandfather (jt jt jt.f on the surveying instrument) (P6-P7, P16-P17).
7. **Dahamunzu**: explicitly left open ("a question outside the parameters of the present article"), but Allen notes that if it was Neferneferuaten, her request for a Hittite prince ("to me he will be husband, but in Egypt he will be king") need not mean demotion — she could have intended a coregency like the one she had shared with Akhenaten; whereas Meritaten as coregent-then-queen would be an "improbable demotion" (n. 66).

**Evidence relied on, with page refs (preprint pages).**
- Titulary variants (P1-P2): Smenkhkare always (anx-xprw-ra)|(smnx-kA-ra Dsr-xprw)|; Neferneferuaten (anx-xprw-ra + epithet)|(nfr-nfrw-jtn + epithet)|, epithets "desired of Akhenaten"/"of Neferkheperure"/"of Waenre"; feminine forms anxt-xprw-ra, mrt, Axt n h(j).s "effective for her husband", anx.tj Dt, mAat xrw (n. 3 citing Allen GM 141 and Gabolde 1998, 147-62, 213-19).
- Association with Akhenaten: Smenkhkare only on the calcite jar Carter 405 (cartouches of Akhenaten + Smenkhkare, both erased; fig. 1 after Loeben's reconstruction); Neferneferuaten on the **box lid Carter 1k** (Akhenaten + Neferneferuaten + "Chief Queen Meritaten"; fig. 2 after Gardiner's hand copy) and on the "Coregency Stela" UC 410 + Cairo JE 64959 where her double cartouche is cut over a single cartouche of Nefertiti (P2, nn. 4-6). Allen rejects Gabolde's view that Neferneferuaten and Meritaten on box 1k are the same person: "a reference to two individuals remains the simplest and most transparent interpretation" (n. 6, citing Murnane OLZ 96).
- Coregency: juxtaposition of cartouches "not conclusive proof" (jar could be a memorial dedication) (P3); the Memphis "coregency relief" (Newberry JEA 14) is dismissed following Málek 1996 and Löhr 1975 — the smaller figure is probably a princess (P3, nn. 8-11); the stelae Berlin 17813 and 20716 show a male and a female king interacting as living persons, so Neferneferuaten's reign was "at least partly contemporary" with Akhenaten's (P3, n. 12, crediting Harris AO 35 for noting the junior king's sex).
- Sole reign indicators: the Pawah graffito's offerings to Amun in the "temple of Ankhkheperure in Thebes" ("perhaps her mortuary temple"); pectoral Carter 261p(1) with Nut/Onnophris; the "Akhenaten-less" epithets (P5, nn. 17-18).
- Length: max 3-4 years / min under 1 year between Akhenaten's death and Tutankhamun's accession; if Smenkhkare had also been coregent, Neferneferuaten's reign would have had to fall entirely within Akhenaten's, which Allen rejects (P5).
- KV55 (P6-P7): body male, 18-25 at death; coffin and canopics made for Akhenaten (Grimm 2001 — Allen abandons his own 1988 Kiya-coffin argument, n. 24), but the body cannot be Akhenaten's because Akhenaten fathered Meritaten by Year 4-5 and so cannot have died at 25 in Year 17 (n. 55 makes this explicit); hence the body is Smenkhkare's, the equipment appropriated. He notes the unexplained female arm-position (n. 21).
- Parentage of Tutankhamun (P7-P9): Hermopolis block "king's son of his body, his desired, Tutankhuaten" facing "[Ankhesenpa]aten" (fig. 5); zA can mean son/grandson/son-in-law but n Xt.f mry.f implies lineal descent; Amenhotep III excluded (no long coregency — Dorman on Kheruef); Aya's "his son" is not literal. **Key inference (P9): Akhenaten's appointment of a female coregent shows he had no son** — "Neferneferuaten's coregency therefore most likely indicates that Akhenaten was not the father, nor the grandfather, of Tutankhamun".
- The -tasherit granddaughters (P9-P14): Meritaten-tasherit and Ankhesenpaaten-tasherit are real (Hermopolis recuttings are "prima facie evidence", n. 34, against Gabolde's "phantom children"), fathered by Akhenaten on his own daughters; Room gamma nurse-and-child text restored as Meritaten's, not a grandchild's (P11-P12); chronology: Meritaten Jr. born Year 14-15, Meketaten died in childbirth Year 15, Ankhesenpaaten Jr. born Year 16-17 (P14). Consequently Ankhesenpaaten born no later than Year 3-4, and Neferneferuaten Jr., born "within a year of them", reached 13 in Year 16-17 — old enough to be coregent and prospective mother of an heir (P15).
- Identity of the coregent (P14-P15): Nefertiti's candidacy "was in the ascendant for a time until the publication of a shawabti of hers, evidence that she died as a queen, not a pharaoh" (Loeben 1986; n. 59 also notes Bovot's two-shawabti reading); Manetho's "his daughter Akenkherēs" points to a daughter; Meritaten excluded because she appears as Chief Queen beside both Neferneferuaten (box 1k) and Smenkhkare (Meryre II) — the latter would be an "unthinkable demotion"; the **nomen argument**: a pharaoh's nomen is always the pre-accession name, so the coregent bore the name Neferneferuaten before coronation, and "since it now seems clear that the coregent was not Nefertiti, she must have been the only other woman known by that name: Akhenaten's fourth daughter, Neferneferuaten Jr." (P14-P15; n. 62 on the absence of tA Srjt; n. 64: Meritaten as chief queen and "mistress" of the house in EA 11 "seems clear evidence that Nefertiti had already died").

**Counter-arguments Allen makes against rivals.**
- vs. Nefertiti-as-king (Harris/Samson): the shawabti (queenly titulary at death) and Manetho's "daughter"; Nefertiti probably dead before the coregency (nn. 59-60, 62, 64).
- vs. Meritaten-as-Neferneferuaten (Krauss, Gabolde): box 1k names Neferneferuaten and Chief Queen Meritaten as two persons; a coregent-pharaoh cannot be demoted to queen of Smenkhkare (P14, n. 61: Gabolde's "political expediency" is "unconvincing").
- vs. KV55 = Akhenaten (Grimm/Gabolde and the epigraphy of the coffin): age at death vs. fatherhood by Year 4 (P6-P7, n. 55).
- vs. Smenkhkare as coregent of Akhenaten before Neferneferuaten: the Merire II scene shows Smenkhkare "in place of Akhenaten", so any overlap would have been months only; and the Year 1 "house of Smenkhkare" docket may be Tutankhamun's (P5).
- vs. Gabolde's "phantom" granddaughters (n. 34, P10-P11).

**What would refute Allen 2009 (by his own logic).** Proof that Nefertiti was alive and still Chief Queen after Year 12 up to the end of the reign (his n. 62 concedes "the evidence is unclear") — precisely what the Dayr Abu Hinnis Year 16 graffito later supplied; or a demonstrable pre-accession identity of the coregent other than a woman named Neferneferuaten.

### 1.2 Allen 2016, "The Amarna Succession Revised", GM 249, 9-13 — (c) NOT read; reported through Dietrich 2024 and Dodson 2020
(see section 7 below for what those witnesses say; they report that Allen now places Smenkhkare BEFORE Neferneferuaten.)

### 1.3 Change of position between papers
- 1988 (JARCE 25): KV55 coffin originally Kiya's (per Hanke), altered for a king — **abandoned** in 2009 (n. 24: "This supersedes my arguments in JARCE 25 (1988), 121-26"), following Grimm's demonstration that the coffin was made for Akhenaten.
- 1994 (GM 141) and Amarna Letters ("Akhenaten's 'Mystery' Coregent and Successor"): Allen's CV lists these; by 2009 he is the leading advocate of Neferneferuaten = daughter Neferneferuaten-tasherit.
- 2009 → 2016: order of Neferneferuaten and Smenkhkare reversed (per Dietrich 2024: 1175: "He later changed his view and supported the order Smenkhkare – Neferneferuaten (Allen 2016 ...)").


---

## 2. John R. Harris — origin of the Nefertiti-as-king thesis

### 2.1 Harris, "Nefertiti rediviva", AcOr 35 (1973) 5-13 — (a) read in full (OCR of the Oslo scan; page refs are the journal's)
- **Thesis and method.** Re-attribution of the two small unfinished Berlin stelae. (i) Pase stela **Berlin 17813** (pp. 5-7): "when first discussed it was presumed to depict Akhenaten and Nefertiti", but since Newberry (JEA 14, 1928) and Carter it had been accepted as Akhenaten and Smenkhkare. Harris's argument: the seven empty cartouches admit "only one logical reconstruction" — two pairs beside the Aten are the Aten's; the three larger cartouches above the food table can only be "a king and a queen — whereas two kings would require four" (p. 6, with parallels Cairo JE 44865 and Berlin 14145, n. 8). Iconography confirms: the right-hand figure (double crown) is slightly larger and wears a king's pectoral; the left-hand figure "has rather more obvious breasts, and extends an arm in what is conventionally a woman's embrace"; and the **neck criterion** ("first noted, apparently, by Schäfer ... cited most recently by Cooney"): convex neck with an angle = male, smoothly concave = female (p. 7, nn. 13-15). (ii) **Berlin 20716** (pp. 7-8): no cartouches, but the right-hand crowned person "has a quite clearly 'concave' neck, and is therefore a queen, in spite of the crown"; parallel to the Meryre II scene; "will surely be Nefertiti".
- **Consequence for the coregency** (pp. 8-9): "without the two stelae under discussion, the whole of the representational evidence for the co-regency [of Akhenaten and Nefernefruaten/Smenkhkare loses its] real significance, since none of the items remaining is independently valid"; the Hermopolis block 406-VIIA (two kingly pairs of legs) and the Ashmolean sealing 1921.1149 (two crowned figures, red and blue crowns, hekat sceptres) "could equally well refer to Akhenaten and Nefertiti" (nn. 21-22). "Effectively, therefore, an independent co-regency of Akhenaten and Nefernefruaten/Smenkhkare must rest on the juxtaposition of their cartouches (of which, as yet, there are only two certain examples, with two others open to doubt) and, at the least, there should now be a moratorium on all homosexual fantasies" (p. 9). **n. 23**: "If in fact Nefertiti was also Nefernefruaten/Smenkhkare (Harris, GM 4 (1973) 15-17), then the co-regency evidence is, of course, cumulative."
- **Nomen doctrine** (n. 5, p. 5): "Smenkhkare" is "misleading ... not only was it the latest (and final) variant of the nomen ... but, with accompanying variants of the prenomen, it is less common than forms of the earlier name Ankhkheprure mry X : Nefernefruaten mry Y". I.e. **one ruler, Nefernefruaten first, Smenkhkare last** (the "name-change" model).
- **Nefertiti's kingly attributes** (pp. 9-12): stands at the king's right in statuary; smites a captive; wears kingly headgear — the short round-bottomed wig with diadem, the multiple atef, the flat-topped cap with feathers/horns/disc, the close-fitting cap; the **blue crown** on a Hermopolis block (777-VIIIA) whose figure has feminine drapery and a female neck (p. 11, n. 38); the duplicate-outline scenes in the tombs of Meryre II, Huya and Panehesy imply "virtually equal status" and show her with the blue and the red crown (pp. 11-12).
- **Conclusion** (p. 13): the blue crown is the coronation crown, so "if it can be shown that Nefertiti assumed the blue crown (for which Hatshepsut offers an obvious precedent), it follows inevitably that she had attained to the status of kingship, and this may be further confirmed by the otherwise unexplained duplication of her cartouche, as though, like a king, she possessed a prenomen and nomen" (n. 51: Petrie TeA pl. 15 (82); a mould in the Ashmolean and "eighteen in the collection at University College, London" — information from **Mrs Samson**). "I have suggested already that Nefernefruaten-Nefertiti became Ankhkheprure Nefernefruaten" (n. 52 = GM 4). The "disgrace" of Nefertiti (Helck, Munro) is "even more difficult to allow" (p. 13).
- **NB on credit**: this 1973 paper does **not** mention the feminine *t* of Ankh*et*kheperure; its evidence is cartouche-counting and iconography. The feminine-*t* observation is attributed to Harris 1974 by Dodson 2009 (p. 34) and to Samson by Reeves 2015 (n. 31); Dodson 2020 (p. 128) loosely says "in 1973". Allen 2009 (n. 12) credits Harris 1973 with first noting the junior king's sex on the stelae.

### 2.2 Harris, "Akhenaten or Nefertiti?", AcOr 38 (1977) 5-10 — (a) read in full
- The Karnak "sexless" colossus Cairo JE 55938 "was made as an image of Nefertiti and not of Akhenaten" (p. 6): it bears only Aten cartouches; it is one of four colossi whose crown sits directly on the head, all four deliberately smashed and defaced, "as though a particular stigma attached to her, which was not shared by Akhenaten" (p. 7, cf. the Nefertiti talatat structure at Karnak, n. 17); concave neck (p. 7); the double uraeus is queenly, never worn by Akhenaten (pp. 8-9, n. 25); her twin sceptres, double crown and beard "are matched in the case of Hatshepsut, as is the 'Osirid' form" (p. 9). n. 30 (p. 9): "cf. Harris GM 4 (1973); AcOr 35 (1973); 36 (1974) 11-21. I feel that this point at least may fairly be emphasised, irrespective of whether one then is prepared to accept the identification with Nefernefruaten." Theological reading: Akhenaten-Shu / Nefertiti-Tefnut (p. 10).

### 2.3 Harris, "Nefernefruaten regnans", AcOr 36 (1974) 11-21 — (c) NOT obtainable
Not digitized with the rest of vol. 36 at journals.uio.no. What others report: a catalogue of the monuments of Ankhkheprure with figures (Allen 2009 n. 5 cites p. 13 (1a) for box 1k, n. 9 cites p. 17 (2a, 2d); Dietrich 2024 n. 17 cites p. 16 (c), 17 (fig. 2c) for the Memphis block); Dodson 2009 p. 34 says that "in the first of a series of papers" (1974) Harris "noted the existence of versions of the long prenomen that seemed to include the feminine t-ending", concluding that Neferneferuaten "(and thus Smenkhkare) was actually a woman, and none other than Nefertiti", who "after Akhenaten's death ... had further changed her name to Smenkhkare to mark her status as an independent ruler".

### 2.4 Harris, "Neferneferuaten", GM 4 (1973) 15-17 — (b) core passage quoted by Reeves 2001 pp. 170-171
Reeves quotes: "In the 13th year of the reign of Akhenaten (or at some time not far removed), queen Nefernefruaten-Nefertiti, having assumed the crown of kingship but not the full titulary, seems suddenly to dissolve from sight. At about the same time, there appears as co-regent an otherwise unknown person, bearing the nomen Nefernefruaten but with a different epithet, and having the given prenomen Ankhkheprure. Under the co-regency, the position of [great royal wife] devolves upon Meritaten, who continues in this capacity in association with Nefernefruaten alone, and when the latter adopts the name Smenkhkare — possibly as sole ruler.... Two kingly persons of similar name, and not clearly distinguishable in any respect, may thus be seen to succeed each other with no perceptible interval, though without any overlap. The case for a simple identification is sufficiently obvious ..." Reeves also reports (p. 170) that Harris resolved Gauthier's 1912 objection by showing that "the first and original name of the co-regent of Akhenaten was Nefernefruaten, and ... the adoption of the alternative nomen Smenkhkare was a subsequent modification".

### 2.5 Later Harris (c)
- Harris 1992, "Akhenaten and Nefernefruaten in the tomb of Tut'ankhamun", in Reeves (ed.), *After Tut'ankhamun* (1992) 55-72 — NOT obtained. Reeves 2015 nn. 24-27, 31 relies on it for (i) the division of the reused KV62 equipment into an Akhenaten group and a Neferneferuaten group and (ii) the epithet forms; Dietrich 2024 (p. 100) cites Harris 1992: 60-61 for the rule that the plain prenomen always accompanies Smenkhkare and the extended prenomen always Neferneferuaten.
- Harris's 1993 Copenhagen lecture (Dahamunzu = Nefertiti) is known only through Reeves 2001 pp. 176-177.
- Reeves 2015 n. 33 states that Harris's "opinions have since changed: Harris 2008" (reference not resolvable here).

---

## 3. Julia Samson — (c) throughout
- "Nefertiti's regality", JEA 63 (1977) 88-97: not obtainable (JSTOR/SAGE 403). Reeves 2015 n. 31: "The female sex of Akhenaten's co-regent was first demonstrated textually by Julia Samson from the occasional inclusion in the prenomen of faience ring bezels of the feminine marker, t – Ankhetkheperure (+ epithet)". Reeves 2001 p. 171 tells the same story (bezels from Petrie's 1891-92 Amarna work, UCL). Harris 1973 n. 51 already credits "Mrs Samson" with the count of eighteen moulds of Nefertiti's double cartouche at UCL — the feminine-t bezels and the doubled queenly cartouche are the two Samson contributions repeatedly cited.
- "Akhenaten's coregent Ankhkheperure-Nefernefruaten", GM 53 (1982) 51-54; *Amarna, City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Nefertiti as Pharaoh* (Aris & Phillips 1978); *Nefertiti and Cleopatra* (1985): none accessible in text form here (archive.org has only lending copies of the 1972 and 1985 books).
- Dodson's reply, "Nefertiti's Regality: A Comment", JEA 67 (1981) 179, is listed in Dodson 2020's bibliography — evidence that Dodson began as an opponent of Samson's thesis before adopting Nefertiti = Neferneferuaten in the 2009 book.

---

## 4. Nicholas Reeves

### 4.1 Reeves, *Akhenaten, Egypt's False Prophet* (2001) — (a) chs 8-9 read in full; KV55 section (pp. 81-84) read
**Reconstruction.**
1. Nefertiti's status rises steadily; the Year 12 "durbar" scenes (Meryre II, Huya), with king and queen drawn in near-identical outline, "document an early stage in the formal process of the queen's promotion to the status of co-ruler" (p. 172); the Ankhetkheprure ring bezels were "perhaps prepared for the regnal year 12 coronation" (caption p. 171). Berlin 17813 (three cartouches = king + queen, Harris) and **Berlin 25574** (a fourth cartouche "squeezed in" later at a peculiar angle: "Three cartouches ... identify a king and his queen; four cartouches identify a pharaoh and his co-regent. Nefertiti, demonstrably, had become a king", p. 169).
2. Name sequence (p. 172): queen Nefertiti → queen Nefernefruaten-Nefertiti → co-regent Ankhkheprure+epithet Nefernefruaten+epithet → "co-regent, then ruler Ankhkheprure Smenkhkare". **One person.** "The identity of Ankhkheprure Smenkhkare ... the suggestion that Nefertiti might have further developed her name to 'Smenkhkare' and gone on to rule independently has met with fierce resistance. The reason? The body in ... KV55" — "the proverbial red herring of Amarna studies" (p. 173). Both names share the same great royal wife Meritaten (p. 173).
3. Pawah graffito: "Year 3" = the co-regent's own dating "which would equate to around Year 14 of Akhenaten himself" (caption p. 163); it shows a functioning Amun cult "within the mortuary temple of the heretic's co-ruler" and "a decidedly softer line" — power "now vested in the hands not of Akhenaten himself but of ... Ankhkheprure Nefernefruaten" (p. 164).
4. Akhenaten dies after the Year 17 vintage (p. 174); **Dahamunzu = Nefertiti** (following Harris's 1993 lecture: Vandersleyen's "the king's wife par excellence"; timing of Tutankhamun's death vs. the autumn letter; **EA 170** on the Amqa attack shows the Amarna archive still open, i.e. before Amarna's abandonment) (pp. 176-177); Zannanza murdered; "Nefertiti-Smenkhkare" then disappears, "most probably because of death ... in which natural causes played but little part" (p. 178). Caption p. 177: "Her hold on power evidently continued, as Ankhkheprure Smenkhkare, into the reign of Tutankhamun"; p. 180: power "retained by Nefertiti-Smenkhkare, with their reigns — like those of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III — running concurrently".
5. **KV55 = Akhenaten** (pp. 81-84): Weigall's archaeology "very sound"; Hussein & Harris (ICE 1988) age "mid-thirties"/"in excess of 35"; the coffin and canopics were Kiya's; reburial from Amarna temp. Tutankhamun of "mother and son", Tiye later removed by Ramesside workmen. Her burial equipment (second coffin, canopic coffinettes "all of which carried the portrait of their original owner") shows Nefertiti's burial "had clearly been an impressive one ... purely Osirian" (p. 178).
6. **Tutankhaten = son of Akhenaten by Kiya** ("most probably the child of this same woman", p. 179; p. 160: Kiya "probably giving birth to Tutankhaten — the king's only son"); the -tasherit girls = Akhenaten's children by Meritaten and Ankhesenpaaten (p. 160).
7. The shabti fragments of Nefertiti are "votive offerings prepared during the donor's life", "of no relevance whatsoever to her rank at death" (p. 170).
**Counter-arguments**: against KV55 = Smenkhkare ("not a scrap of archaeological or inscriptional evidence could be mustered from Davis's tomb to support Smenkhkare's association with any part of it", p. 83; circularity of the "elder brother" argument); against Nefertiti's disgrace/death (Kiya was the one erased, p. 170); against the two-person reading of the prenomen (2001 does not yet engage Allen 1988/1994 explicitly beyond p. 173).
**1990 position** (*Complete Tutankhamun*, opensource archive.org text, p. 24 area): "The appearance of a king Ankhkheprure Smenkhkare-djeserkhepru is documented towards the end of Akhenaten's reign, and it is tempting to see this ruler as the ultimate manifestation of the former great royal wife, Nefertiti ... Smenkhkare disappears after a brief independent reign" — so the Nefertiti = Smenkhkare idea is already there in 1990.

### 4.2 Reeves, "The Burial of Nefertiti?" (ARTP Occasional Paper 1, 2015) — (a) read (Factum Arte PDF; page refs = paper's pp. 1-16)
- Historical premise (pp. 2-5): "in an astonishing 80% or more of the tomb's core burial equipment (to include the large gilded shrines, sarcophagus, coffins, gold mask, and canopic equipment)" there is evidence of re-use; two groups — "a stray scattering of pieces seemingly once intended for the burial of Akhenaten himself" (Harris 1992) and "by far the larger proportion, items initially prepared for the use of Akhenaten's junior co-regent ... Ankhkheperure (+ epithet) Neferneferuaten (+ epithet)" (p. 4, nn. 24-27). Body shape (Carter 289b, 458), iconography (second coffin 254; coffinettes 266g) and inscriptions identify the co-regent as a woman, "most likely the great royal wife Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti in newly elevated guise" (p. 4, nn. 29-32). "This same lady's rise evidently continued, culminating in her appointment as sole pharaoh following Akhenaten's death and the adoption of a new and developed form of her semi-regal name – Ankhkheperure Smenkhkare-djeserkheperu" (p. 4).
- **n. 27 name-forms "in likely chronological order"**: (a) Ankhkheperure-beloved of Neferkheperure : Neferneferuaten-beloved of Waenre; (b) Ankhkheperure-beloved of Neferkheperure (or Waenre) : Neferneferuaten-she who is beneficial for her husband; (c) Ankhkheperure-beloved of the Aten : Neferneferuaten-the ruler; (d) Ankhkheperure : Meryaten ("lit. Beloved of the Aten [= Akhenaten]"). "The co-regent's sex is clearly established as female and, as the epithets imply, her status wholly dependent on Akhenaten."
- **n. 32 (position change)**: "I had originally dated this elevation as co-regent to around Year 12 of Akhenaten's reign; the recent discovery of a graffito dated Year 16, however, in which Nefertiti is referred to still as great royal wife, presumably indicates it was later (Van der Perre 2014)." Nefertiti "is the only candidate for whom a consistent progression in status may from the very start be discerned" (names Nefertiti → Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti; titles Hmt nsw wrt → Hmt nsw aAt, Reeves 1978). He characterises Allen 2009, Gabolde 2009 and von Falck 2012 as identifying the co-regent with **Meritaten** (sic — for Allen this is inaccurate: Allen 2009 argued for Neferneferuaten-tasherit) "notwithstanding that both Neferneferuaten and Meritaten are mentioned together, and as distinct entities" on Carter 001k.
- **n. 33**: "I do not subscribe to the view which posits the existence of two regal entities sharing the Ankhkheperure prenomen ... (Hornung 2006, 207) – not least because both 'individuals,' besides sharing virtually the same prenomen, are found associated with the same great royal wife, Meritaten"; the Golden Throne (Carter 091) shows "a clear sequence of inscriptional re-use from Akhenaten through Neferneferuaten to Smenkhkare and Tutankhaten/amun" (Reeves 2014 = BES 19).
- **n. 34**: Smenkhkare's reign "exceptionally short, being brought to a swift (and unhappy) end following her appeal to the king of the Hittites" (Dahamunzu = Nefertiti, citing Harris in Reeves 2001 and Miller 2007); Tutankhamun buried both Akhenaten and Smenkhkare; Nefertiti, "too senior to employ her existing and only 'semi-pharaonic' co-regent's funerary equipment", was "assigned Akhenaten's own burial furniture, suitably re-inscribed"; hence Akhenaten's "care-less interment ... within the Valley tomb of his mother, Tiye (KV 55)" in Kiya's hastily adapted coffin. **n. 9**: his opinion is "now modified to regard Akhenaten's presence within KV 55 as a primary interment rather than as a burial transferred from el-Amarna" (a change from 2001).
- n. 36: "The Theban mortuary temple of (pharaoh) Ankhkheperure is mentioned in the well-known Pere graffito". Her burial at Thebes "under the name of Smenkhkare, I believe is now virtually certain" (p. 5). Part Two: the Factum Arte scans of the west and north walls — putative doorway jambs beneath the plaster; KV62 as a queenly corridor tomb turning right; the north wall painted for Nefertiti and re-labelled (Ay's figure originally Tutankhamun's, Tutankhamun's originally Nefertiti's).
- n. 11: the four KV62 shrines are "a mixed set" — Akhenaten's (II?) and Neferneferuaten's (I, III, IV?); KV57 possibly begun for Akhenaten.

### 4.3 Reeves, "The Gold Mask of Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten", JAEI 7:4 (2015) 77-79 — (a) read in full
Announces that his BES 19 essay ("Tutankhamun's Mask Reconsidered", "which has still to appear") argued on non-inscriptional grounds that the mask was made for the female co-regent; then (Sept. 2015, Cairo, re-lit mask; photo by Ahmed Amin) "beneath the hieroglyphs of Tutankhamun's prenomen, lightly chased traces of an earlier, erased royal name": three floating legs of a xpr sign, space for an anx, three short verticals under the plural strokes, a re-emphasised ra → **anx-xprw-ra**; a long rectangular shadow under the nb = **mr** "beloved (of)"; Ray Johnson recognised that Tutankhamun's cartouche is a shortened version of the original, the freed space filled with mAa xrw; agreed reconstruction (drawing by Gabolde) = the extended prenomen of Neferneferuaten (epithet "beloved of Neferkheperure/Waenre"). Reeves stresses that the extended form "was a form employed exclusively by the female co-regent Neferneferuaten; use of the second, without epithet, appears to have been restricted to the pharaoh Smenkhkare" — note that this concedes, for the purposes of the mask, precisely the Allen/Dodson two-form distinction.

### 4.4 Reeves & Ballard, "The Decorated North Wall ... (The Burial of Nefertiti? II)", ARTP Occ. Paper 3 (2019) — (c)
Summary available only second-hand (search snippet of the abstract; Lightbody 2021): "KV 62 – architecturally the sepulchre of a queen – had been both intended and employed for the burial of Nefertiti in her capacity as Akhenaten's heir, Smenkhkare-djeserkheperu"; Ballard re-processed the National Geographic (2016) and Turin (2018) data and, while confirming no void, kept open a "back-filled" corridor behind the north wall (Lightbody 2021: 95).

### 4.5 Radar saga (from Lightbody 2021, pp. 94-95, with Dodson 2020 nn.)
GPR1 Watanabe, Nov. 2015 (single antenna; claimed voids; never formally published) → GPR2 National Geographic (Berkenpas/Turchik), March 2016: no void → GPR3 Politecnico di Torino (Sambuelli et al., *J. Cultural Heritage* 2019, three frequency bands, calibrated), Feb. 2018: "with a high level of confidence ... not supported by the GPR data" → Reeves 2019 (Ballard) → Terravision surface survey reported by *Nature* (Marchant, 19 Feb 2020; unpublished report) → Reeves, "The Burial of Nefertiti (2020)" (academia.edu 44334116; Lightbody n. 40: Reeves "seems to have now rejected the conclusions of the radar scans entirely" and "suggests that no fewer than three hidden rooms could be connected to the burial chamber"). Dodson 2020 p. 100 calls the 2015 scans "erroneous". No 2021-2026 survey publication was found (the search was exhausted before this could be checked further).

### 4.6 Reeves 2023, "The Phantom 'Temple of Ankhkheperure in Thebes'" (Fs Strudwick, 263-274) — (c)
Not obtainable (academia.edu only, 403). Dietrich 2024 (p. 100) lists Reeves 2023 among those holding that the two titularies are "the result of a name change of one king" (with Harris 1973, 1974; Kemp 2016; Newberry 1928; Willeitner 2022a-b). The title implies he now denies that the TT139 graffito attests a Theban mortuary temple of Ankhkheperure (contrast his own 2015 n. 36, where the "Theban mortuary temple of (pharaoh) Ankhkheperure" was a premise for locating Nefertiti's burial at Thebes). I could not verify his re-reading of pr/Hwt anx-xprw-ra m WAst; treat all statements about its content as unverified. **See Addendum §10.1: Dietrich 2024 n. 18 reports that Reeves 2023 "convincingly rejected" the TT139-based Smenkhkare-first argument of Dodson 2020b by a corrected reading.**

---

## 5. Aidan Dodson

### 5.1 *Amarna Sunset* (2009) — (a) ch. 2 "The Waning Sun" (pp. 27-52) and ch. 5 "The Zananzash Affair" (pp. 89-93) read in full; ch. 1 end and ch. 3 opening read; Appendix 3 (Royal Names, pp. 170-171) is a table lost in OCR
**Reconstruction.**
1. Year 12 durbar; cluster of royal deaths (Meketaten, Tiye, two youngest girls) in Years 13/14, perhaps epidemic (pp. 25-26, 38).
2. **Smenkhkare = coregent from c. Year 13/14**, married to Meritaten: the TA2 (Meryre II) scene was sketched immediately after the durbar in the artists' working sequence "probably before the end of Year 12 or early in Year 13" (pp. 28-29); the jar Carter 405 (Loeben's reading Akhenaten + Smenkhkare) "highly suggestive of a joint rule" (p. 30); "Coronation Hall" bricks; Memphis block; gold daisies with Smenkhkare + Meritaten in KV62 (p. 31). Smenkhkare was **not** Akhenaten's son (too old for the KV55 body) but "would fit nicely as a younger brother of Akhenaten" and heir presumptive after Tutankhuaten (p. 38); he died "within a year or two" (p. 39).
3. **Neferneferuaten = Nefertiti**, appointed "as Smenkhkare's replacement" c. Year 14/15 (p. 42), initially perhaps without full titulary (Berlin 17813 with three cartouches: Akhenaten + blue-crowned Nefertiti; the UC 410 stela recut, pp. 41-42). Rationale: Akhenaten appointed "in succession two adults" as guarantors of the revolution and of the underage Tutankhuaten's accession (p. 38).
4. Akhenaten dies Year 17; the "Year 1 over Year 17" docket shows a new count began only then (p. 44); **TT139 Year 3 = Tutankhaten's Year 3**, Neferneferuaten "transitioned from being Akhenaten's coregent ... to being the coregent of King Nebkheperure Tutankhaten, sharing the new king's regnal years" (p. 44); Tell el-Borg jar handles of both (p. 45). The "Temple of Ankhkheperure" uses the simple prenomen → **Smenkhkare's** foundation, a possible Amun establishment during his coregency → persecution of Amun dated to Akhenaten's very last year(s) (pp. 43, 45-46). The graffito epithets may be "meryetaten" or "even 'meryetamun'" (p. 45).
5. Neferneferuaten's last glimpse is Year 3; her funerary equipment (coffinettes, trappings, bow, box, bracelets, pectoral; perhaps the sarcophagus) was reused for Tutankhamun, so she "certainly was not buried as a king" — "either died and was posthumously denied her kingly status, or was deposed" (pp. 49-51); the name-change to Tutankhamun follows her disappearance (p. 51). TA29 (45 m) probably her tomb, TA27 Tutankhaten's (p. 49).
6. **KV55 = Smenkhkare**, in Kiya's coffin (pp. 39-41): body "in his twenties", too young for Akhenaten; the traditional-text middle coffin of Tutankhamun was made for Smenkhkare (glass inlay like KV55; square face; sunk cartouche interiors; resemblance to the 1966 facial reconstruction) but rejected by Akhenaten as religiously incorrect (pp. 40-41). The -tasherit girls = children of Smenkhkare and Meritaten (p. 39); "Meketaten's baby seems likely not to have existed" (p. 39).
7. **Dahamunzu = Ankhesenamun**, Nipkhururiya = Tutankhamun (pp. 89-93): "emendation should always be a last resort; and in any case, on the reconstruction already put forward in this book, Nefertiti was a king by the time Akhenaten died, with a son to place on the throne, while Smenkhkare had died some time before Akhenaten" (p. 89). Tutankhamun's parents: Akhenaten and (probably) Nefertiti ("Nefertiti, as Great Wife and probably mother of the heir to the throne", p. 38) — published before the Feb. 2010 DNA study.
**Counter-arguments** (pp. 34-37): vs. Harris/Samson single-person model — the Meryre II scene and Memphis block show a married, male Smenkhkare; Krauss's Meritaten-as-Ankhetkheperure "middle way"; **Allen 1988** cut the knot: no extended prenomen with the nomen Smenkhkare and no simple prenomen with Neferneferuaten; **Gabolde 1998** read Axt n hi.s, "confirmed beyond any doubt in 2004 by Allen and Gabolde's exhaustive reassessments of the palimpsest inscriptions" on the coffinettes; vs. **Meritaten** = Neferneferuaten: box 1k "requires some rather tortured logic"; vs. **Neferneferuaten-tasherit** (Allen): "at most, around ten years old" when the king appears, with two elder sisters and Tutankhuaten alive, and no way to have earned "effective for her husband" (pp. 36-37); vs. the **shabti**: pre-made equipment "strayed from some palace storeroom" (p. 37); vs. Kiya (p. 36).

### 5.2 *Amarna Sunset*, revised edition (2018) — (c) (See Addendum §10.2 for Dodson's own 2020 description of the 2018 revision and of his change of position since 1981.)
Not obtainable. Dodson 2020 (Introduction, p. 5) describes the 2009 book as "published in 2009 (with an extensively revised [second edition in 2018])" and cites "Dodson 2018a" throughout for the same positions as 2020 (e.g. 2018a: 27-29 on Smenkhkare; 64-66; 70-71; 89-94; 99; 144-45 on the radar). The one substantive change forced by the Year 16 graffito is stated in Dodson 2020 p. 72 and can be assumed to be in 2018a: Nefertiti was "still only King's Great Wife" on I Akhet 15 of Year 16, so her kingship began "at most fifteen months before Akhenaten's death, and probably significantly less" (2020 p. 79) — in 2009 he had placed her appointment c. Year 14/15 (p. 42). I could not verify any other 2018 change directly.

### 5.3 *Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt* (2020) — (a) Introduction, chs 3-4 (pp. 63-105) and pp. 128-129 read in full
**Reconstruction (2020).** Smenkhkare coregent c. Year 13/14 (p. 68: ring bezel with a Year 13 potsherd at the Small Aten Temple; TA2), a younger brother of Akhenaten, died early (pp. 69-70); then Nefertiti as **"crowned queen"** with the blue crown (Berlin 17813; the Kestner head 1970.49 with the flat-topped crown recut into a blue crown, p. 71) but "not at this time appointed full coregent" (p. 72); **Deir Abu Hinnis quarry 320, Year 16, I Akhet 15**: "a routine graffito ... records the extraction of stone for the hwt-itn (Small Aten Temple), and thus is an unequivocal statement of Nefertiti's formal status on that day" as King's Great Wife (p. 72); box lid Carter 1k made "at some point between then and Akhenaten's death" (p. 72); full titulary table of five variants A-E (p. 74: A mery-Neferkheperure/mery-Waenre; B mery-Waenre/Axt-n-hi.s; C mery-Neferkheperure/Axt-n-hi.s; D mery-i[...]/mery-i[mn?]; E mery-itn/HqA); "Nefertiti's identity with the king Neferneferuaten seems all but transparent" (p. 75: name; "husband" epithet; position between Akhenaten and Meryetaten on box 1k). Ashmunein block with Neferneferuaten + princess Ankhesenpaaten and the pillar with two kings and a small female (pp. 75-76). After Akhenaten: Dahamunzu **rejected** for Nefertiti ("the text is explicit in stating that the queen in question had no son — yet ... Tutankhaten was most likely Nefertiti's son"; she was "a full king", not a King's Wife) — "the conventional attribution to a decade later remains far more credible" (p. 80). TT139 Year 3 (III Akhet 10) with nomen epithet "credibly ... restored as 'mery-Amun'" (p. 80); the Hwt of Ankhkheperure = Smenkhkare's (p. 82); Year 3 possibly Tutankhamun's count (pp. 82-83; chart p. 83). **Tutankhamun = son of Akhenaten and Nefertiti** (pp. 47-48, 80: "argued above ... to be Akhenaten"; the KV55 mummy has "the same genetics as the father of Tutankhamun" yet is identified as Smenkhkare, brother of Akhenaten — see the note appended below). Neferneferuaten's death: equipment reallocated to Tutankhamun → not buried as king; if she is the KV35 **Younger Lady**, the facial injury (CT: inflicted before mummification) suggests murder, age 25-35 fits (pp. 94-95). Burial: KV55 held Akhenaten, Smenkhkare and Tiye (p. 99); Neferneferuaten possibly in an undiscovered tomb, in KV55 or even KV62 as an undecorated single chamber, later moved to KV35 (pp. 99-102). Reeves's hidden-chamber theory rests on "erroneous scans" (p. 100, n. → Dodson 2018b; NatGeo 2018).
**History of the debate (pp. 128-129)**: Harris 1973 (feminine t; single person changing sex, Nefertiti → Smenkhkare as independent ruler); opponents (Meryre II; Memphis block; male corpse); Krauss 1978 (Meritaten as Ankhetkheperure); Allen 1988 (two persons); Gabolde 1998 (Axt-n-hi.s = "final proof" of gender); Meryetaten candidacy fails on box 1k; **"A further proposal, first put forward by James Allen in 2009, has been that the female king might have been Akhenaten and Nefertiti's fourth daughter, Neferneferuaten-tasherit. This was subsequently withdrawn by its author, who now accepts the equation of Nefertiti and Neferneferuaten" (n. 102 = Allen 2016: 11)**; Angenot's revival (two sisters). Dodson 2020 n. (p. 138 area, on parentage): Allen 2016: 10-11 makes Tutankhuaten's father **Smenkhkare "by an otherwise unknown sister"**.

### 5.4 Dodson, "Amarna Sunset: the late-Amarna succession revisited", in *Beyond the Horizon* (Fs Kemp, 2009) 29-43 — (c)
Bristol portal record only (no PDF); academia.edu blocked. Dietrich 2024 n. 18 cites it with Allen 2016 and Dodson 2020a for the order Smenkhkare – Neferneferuaten. Presumably the article version of *Amarna Sunset* ch. 2.

### 5.5 Dodson, "On the graffito in Theban Tomb 139", Fs Hawass (2020) 357-365 — (b) publisher/Bristol abstract only
Bristol abstract (retrieved 2026-09-14): "This article reviews a number of issues concerning the graffito in Theban Tomb 139, dated to Year 3 of the female king Neferneferuaten. In a discussion of the status of the cult of Amun as reflected in the text, it is concluded that the king may have been given the epithet 'beloved of Amun' in at least one of her cartouches. Concerning the 'Hwt of Ankhkheperure at Thebes,' at which the authors of the graffito were employed, it is argued that this was an establishment founded by Smenkhkare rather than Neferneferuaten." No PDF attached at Bristol (only a link to the Charles University e-shop).

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## 6. Athena Van der Perre

### 6.1 "The Year 16 graffito of Akhenaten in Dayr Abū Ḥinnis. A Contribution to the Study of the Later Years of Nefertiti", JEH 7 (2014) 67-108 — (b) publisher abstract only
Crossref/Brill abstract (retrieved 2026-09-14): "A building inscription in a limestone quarry at Dayr Abū Ḥinnis dated to Year 16 of Akhenaten proves that Akhenaten and Nefertiti were still the royal couple near the end of his reign. It is the highest known date of Queen Nefertiti and the latest dated inscription which can be certainly attributed to Akhenaten himself. The second part of the article evaluates current theories concerning the final years of Nefertiti and the successors of Akhenaten in the light of the new text." DOI 10.1163/18741665-12340014; 109 references. Not in Lirias (KU Leuven) — Lirias holds her PhD thesis record ("Stone for Amarna. The Use of ancient limestone quarries in the Greater Dayr al-Barsha Region", 2015-11-25, abstract only, no open bitstream) and "Quarry Marks of the Amarna Period: The limestone quarries of Dayr Abu Hinnis", in *Non-Textual Marking Systems in Ancient Egypt (and Elsewhere)* (Widmaier 2015) 69-80 (abstract only). Her KU Leuven staff page lists the JEH article and De Laet et al., "Integrated remote sensing investigations of ancient quarries and road systems in the greater Dayr al-Barshā region", *JAS* 55 (2015) 286-300, without PDFs. Unpaywall/Semantic Scholar: closed.
**What the graffito says, as reported by others (not verified against the original edition):** Dodson 2020 p. 72: quarry 320 at Deir Abu Hinnis "some ten kilometers north of Amarna"; date "I 3ht 15 of Akhenaten's Year 16 (a little more than a year before his death)"; "a routine graffito ... records the extraction of stone for the hwt-itn (Small Aten Temple)"; Nefertiti "still only King's Great Wife" (fig. 80 caption: "naming Nefertiti as still King's Great Wife"). Reeves 2015 n. 32: "a graffito dated Year 16 ... in which Nefertiti is referred to still as great royal wife". The transliteration/translation of the text itself was NOT obtained. Her own conclusions on the succession: unverified; the search-engine summary of her 2012 chapter (academia.edu, 403) speaks of "her appointment as Akhenaten's coregent, the role of Meritaten as the 'Great Royal Wife', and the representation of the royal family ... by Akhenaten, Nefertiti (as Neferneferuaten), and Ankhesenpaaten", which would put her on the Nefertiti = Neferneferuaten side, but this is (c).
### 6.2 "Nefertiti's last documented reference (for now)", in Seyfried (ed.), *In the Light of Amarna* (2012) 195-197 — (c) (academia.edu/ResearchGate 403).
### 6.3 Later work 2015-2026: nothing further on Amarna chronology found beyond the 2015 thesis/chapter (she has since worked on the Brussels execration figurines and Jean Capart).

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## 7. Additional targets — status and what is known

| Work | Status | What I can report |
|---|---|---|
| Allen 2016, "The Amarna Succession Revised", GM 249, 9-13 | (c) | Existence confirmed (Allen's CV; GM 249 TOC). Content per Dodson 2020 p. 129 + n. 102: Allen **withdrew** the Neferneferuaten-tasherit identification and "now accepts the equation of Nefertiti and Neferneferuaten" (Allen 2016: 11); per Dodson 2020 n. on parentage: Tutankhuaten's father = **Smenkhkare "by an otherwise unknown sister"** (Allen 2016: 10-11); per Dietrich 2024 n. 18: Allen "later changed his view and supported the order **Smenkhkare – Neferneferuaten**" (with Dodson 2009, 2020a); Dietrich nn. 8, 10 cite Allen 2016: 10-11 figs 3-4 for the Berlin stelae 17813/20716. Exact new sequence and reasons: NOT read. |
| Dodson 2009 (Fs Kemp) | (c) | see 5.4 |
| Dodson 2020b (TT139) | (b) abstract | see 5.5 |
| Reeves 2023 (phantom temple) | (c) | see 4.6 |
| Johnson 2015, KMT 26: 22-29 (Hanover Kestner head) | (c) | Per Dietrich 2024: Johnson 2015: 28-29 identifies the talatat join 255/VI+482/VII (a crowned male with streamers and a female in a layered wig, same scale, under the Aten) as Akhenaten + a female coregent. The Kestner head (Nefertiti with flat crown recut to a blue crown) appears as Dodson 2020 fig. 79. |
| Johnson 2020, Fs Hawass 759-769 (talatat 406/VII + 777/VIII) | (c) | Per Dietrich 2024 pp. 103-104: Johnson joined 777/VIIIC to the "coregency block" 406/VIIA — the second tall figure is a **female** (concave neck) in a tall, probably blue crown with streamer and a dress knotted under the breast, offering; reverse 777/VIIIA another female royal with ankh to the nose; 406/VIID a king's daughter behind a tall figure; three sides of a pillar reconstructed with measurements. Allen 1991: 74 (followed by Johnson 2020: 767-768 and Kawai 2023: 117-118) attached 826/VIIIA (titularies of Neferneferuaten + King's Daughter Ankhesenpaaten) to the same monument; Dietrich prints Gabolde's reconstruction of 826/VIIIA (Akhenaten – Ankhkheperure beloved of ... – Neferneferuaten beloved of ... – King's Daughter of his body Ankhesenpaaten). Dietrich: "the presence of a female ruler by the name Ankh(et)kheperure seems secured and 406/VII+777/VIII+826/VIII suggests that she was indeed part of a coregency arrangement". |
| Harris 1992 | (c) | see 2.5 |
| Kawai 2023, Wonderful Things 109-121 | (c) | Cited by Dietrich only for 826/VIII (117-118); academia.edu abstract says the paper asks whether Neferneferuaten was "beloved of Waenre" as coregent and argues against her being known as Smenkhkare (search-engine summary; unverified). |
| Brown, JARCE 58 (2022) 287-289 (review of Dodson 2020) | (c) | Not obtainable. |
| Dietrich 2024 (CRE 2023, 92-115) | (a) | Two-ruler model adopted; Amenhotep III/IV coregency rejected (p. 99); coregency of Akhenaten and Neferneferuaten accepted on the talatat evidence; "the sequence of Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten ... is still up to debate ... none has provided convincing proof" (pp. 104-105); a coregency of Akhenaten and Smenkhkare "at best circumstantial". |

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## 8. Comparison table

| Question | Allen 2009 (and 2016 as reported) | Dodson 2009 → 2020 | Reeves 2001 → 2015/2019 | Harris 1973-77 | Samson 1977-82 (c) | Van der Perre 2014 (b) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identity of Neferneferuaten | Akhenaten's 4th daughter Neferneferuaten-tasherit, also his wife (2009); **withdrawn 2016 → Nefertiti** (per Dodson 2020) | Nefertiti (2009, 2020) | Nefertiti | Nefertiti (via GM 4 and the kingly-crown argument) | Nefertiti (feminine-t bezels) | Nefertiti still Great Royal Wife in Year 16; conclusions on succession not read |
| Identity/placement of Smenkhkare | Separate male king; AFTER Neferneferuaten, <1 year (2009); 2016: BEFORE her (per Dietrich) | Separate male king, younger brother of Akhenaten, coregent Year 13/14-c.15, died before Akhenaten | Same person as Neferneferuaten = Nefertiti's final name as sole ruler after Akhenaten | Same person; "Smenkhkare" the latest nomen variant (1973 n. 5) | Same person (as reported by Dodson 2009) | — |
| Length/nature of reigns | Neferneferuaten 3 yrs (part coregency, part sole); Smenkhkare <1 yr; 1-2 yrs between Akhenaten and Tut | Smenkhkare 1-2 yrs as coregent only; Neferneferuaten coregent (from Year 16-17 in 2020; Year 14/15 in 2009), then coregent of Tutankhaten, "Year 3" = Tut's count; gone after Year 3 | Coregent from c. Year 12 (2001) / after Year 16 (2015); sole ruler as Smenkhkare briefly after Year 17, overlapping into Tutankhamun's reign | Coregency c. Year 13 → sole rule as Smenkhkare | — | Coregency can only start after Year 16 |
| Dahamunzu | Left open; if Neferneferuaten, no "demotion" implied | Ankhesenamun (2009 p. 89; 2020 p. 80) | Nefertiti (after Harris 1993; EA 170 argument) | Nefertiti (1993 lecture, via Reeves) | — | — |
| KV55 body | Smenkhkare (son of Amenhotep III & Tiye), in Akhenaten's coffin | Smenkhkare, in Kiya's coffin (2009); 2020: KV55 held Akhenaten + Smenkhkare + Tiye; body = Smenkhkare | Akhenaten (2001: reburied from Amarna; 2015: primary interment, in Kiya's coffin) | — | — | — |
| Tutankhamun's parents | Smenkhkare (2009: + unknown mother; 2016: + an unknown sister) | Akhenaten + Nefertiti (2009 "probably"; 2020 with DNA) | Akhenaten + Kiya | — | — | — |
| Would be refuted by | Nefertiti alive as Great Wife to the end of the reign (conceded n. 62) — cf. Year 16 graffito; a Neferneferuaten cartouche with the plain prenomen | Any object pairing the extended prenomen with the nomen Smenkhkare or vice versa; Smenkhkare dated after Year 17; a kingly burial of Neferneferuaten | Proof that Smenkhkare and Neferneferuaten were distinct (e.g. Dodson's argument that the middle coffin/coffinettes have a male face → made for a male Smenkhkare); hard radar/excavation results (three negative surveys) | Demonstration that the Berlin stelae show two men, or that the queenly double cartouche is not regal | — | — |

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## 9. Coverage and gaps
**Obtained and read in full:** Allen 2009; Harris 1973 and 1977 (OCR from scans; some transliterations garbled); Reeves 2001 (succession chapters), Reeves 2015 (Factum Arte PDF) and Reeves JAEI 2015; Dodson 2009 (chs 2, 5 and parts of 1, 3), Dodson 2020 (chs 3-4, pp. 128-129); Dietrich 2024; Lightbody 2021.
**Abstract/preview only (b):** Van der Perre 2014; Dodson 2020b; Harris GM 4 (1973) via Reeves's quotation.
**Citation only (c) — could not be obtained:** Allen 1988, 1994, 2010 (canopic coffins), **2016**; Harris 1974, 1992, 2008; Samson 1977, 1978, 1982; Reeves BES 19 (2015), 2019, 2020, 2022 (*Complete Tutankhamun* rev.), 2023; Dodson 2009 (Fs Kemp), 2018 (revised *Amarna Sunset*); Van der Perre 2012; Johnson 2015, 2020; Kawai 2023; Brown 2022. Blockers: academia.edu, ResearchGate, JSTOR, SAGE, Brill, CORE, HathiTrust (Cloudflare) all 403; Google Books API rate-limited; archive.org lending copies (Amarna Sunset 2009 official scan, Samson's books) give no text; the search ran out before the last targets could be pursued.
**Corrections:** Allen's canopic-coffins paper is in *Millions of Jubilees* (2010), not *Joyful in Thebes* (2015). Reeves 2015 n. 32 misdescribes Allen 2009 as identifying the coregent with Meritaten (Allen argued for Neferneferuaten-tasherit).
**Most important single finding:** both accessible witnesses (Dodson 2020 p. 129 n. 102; Dietrich 2024 n. 18) report that Allen 2016 abandoned the "daughter" thesis after the Year 16 graffito, now equating Nefertiti with Neferneferuaten and placing Smenkhkare before her, with Tutankhamun as Smenkhkare's son by an unknown sister. This leaves Gabolde/Krauss (Meritaten) and Angenot (two sisters) as the remaining non-Nefertiti candidacies; but Allen 2016 itself must still be read before this is asserted as fact in the report.

## 10. Addendum: verified quotations

### 10.1 Dietrich 2024 on Reeves 2023 vs Dodson 2020b (read in full, (a))
Dietrich, CRE 2023 (Archaeopress 2024), p. 105 n. 18 (continuation of the note on the order of the two Ankhkheperure rulers): "Arguments for a sequence Smenkhkare - Neferneferuaten based on the dipinto in the tomb of Pairy (TT 139) as presented by e.g. Dodson (2020b) have been convincingly rejected by a corrected reading by Reeves (2023). Interestingly, for the one ruler model, the order of names is also debated (see n. 15)." Immediately before this she notes (same note) that the arguments for Neferneferuaten preceding Smenkhkare include that Neferneferuaten "is connected to both Amarnian and 'orthodox' theology, whereas Smenkhkare is only known in connection to the Amarna religion."
Her conclusion, p. 105 (main text): the Hermopolis talatat assemblage 406/VII+777/VIII+826/VIII depicts "coregents – one male and one female – and by the caption, the female one is Neferneferuaten. She is likely to be also the female coregent in the scenes with unidentified coregents (Berlin ÄM 17813 and Berlin ÄM 20716) and the male coregent is likely to be Akhenaten. This leaves the coregency of Akhenaten and Neferneferuaten currently as the only Amarnian coregency with substantial and convincing evidence." She also states (p. 104-105) that there is "no depiction of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten or Akhenaten and Smenkhkare matching the criteria established for pictorial evidence of coregents."
Implication: the *only* witness available to me for the content of Reeves 2023 is this sentence; it establishes (i) that Reeves 2023 concerns the reading of the TT139 graffito's "pr/Hwt Ankhkheperure" phrase, (ii) that Dietrich (an independent chronologist) regards it as refuting Dodson's use of the graffito to place Smenkhkare *before* Neferneferuaten (Dodson's 2020 model: Smenkhkare first, then Neferneferuaten; his TT139 argument is that the "temple of Ankhkheperure" with the plain prenomen is Smenkhkare's Theban Amun foundation, which Reeves's title declares a "phantom", i.e. non-existent). What exactly Reeves re-reads remains (c).

### 10.2 Dodson 2020, Preface (pp. ix-xi), read in full (a) — his own account of his change of position and of the 2018 revision
- "the past few years have revealed new data—or new ways to look at old data—that make even quite recent works obsolescent regarding some aspects of Nefertiti's career. This is especially true regarding its end, where the 2012 discovery of a single graffito showing that she was alive and still functioning as King's Great Wife a year before her husband's death set to naught a range of earlier theories."
- "the very title of this book indicates the way that the emerging data have fundamentally altered the author's own views on Nefertiti's career: my very first published paper, back in 1981, was an explicit denial of the possibility of her ascent to the status of pharaoh, an idea that I now unreservedly embrace!" (The 1981 paper is his JEA 67 comment on Samson; see §3.)
- "Much of the first half of this book builds on my wider studies of the second half of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Amarna Sunset, published in 2009 (with an extensively revised edition in 2018), and Amarna Sunrise, which appeared in 2014." — so the 2018 *Amarna Sunset* is described by its author as "extensively revised"; its content is otherwise still (c) for me, and §5.2's inference that the 2018 model equals the 2020 model rests on this sentence plus the identical sequence in Dodson 2020 ch. 3-4.
- On the 2010 DNA studies: "it is quite clear that only 'preferred' conclusions were provided in the original publication, rather than the full range of options for the interpretation of the raw DNA data. However, some of the ignored possibilities have now been worked through, indicating that there are significantly different options available for the identification of both the owners of certain human remains and their relationships—all assuming, of course, that the DNA results are, in fact, 'real'!" and "I have had no alternative but to consider what the apparent DNA seems to be telling us, and to produce a scheme not at variance with this. Yet ... I have tried to ensure throughout that my hypotheses on such matters are moderated by reference to the monumental sources, so that no fundamental conclusions rest solely on the apparent implications of alleged DNA determinations." This is the methodological basis for his KV55 = Smenkhkare (brother of Akhenaten) identification while still making Tutankhamun the son of Akhenaten and Nefertiti (§5.3; cross-refer to dossier B on the DNA).

### 10.3 Consequence for the reading-log
Rows 19 (Reeves 2023) and 24 (Dodson 2020b) stand as (c) and (b) respectively; the Dietrich sentence above is the sole content-witness for Reeves 2023 and must be cited as "Dietrich 2024: 105 n. 18, reporting Reeves 2023", never as Reeves 2023 itself.