Princess of Armana

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This is a portrait of an Egyptian Amarna princess, taking from the 19th Dynasty (ca. 1340 BC). Pharaoh Amenhotep IV ruled the New Kingdom from 1353 to 1336 BC. He soon renamed himself Akhenaten where he ceased to be polytheistic and started to solely worship Aten, the solar disk.  In art hyistory, Akhenaten is important because he had the first, life-like, naturalistic portraits made at the workshop led by the master sculptor Thutmose. Until that time, only static, idealizing portraiture had existed. Many unfinished statues were found during the excavation of Thutmose's worship in 1912, including three wonderful portraits of Akhenaten's daughters and his wife Nefertiti. The hellows where the eyebrows should be were to be inlaid with a semi-precious stone. The remarkably long skull of this portrait has long created intrigue. Early ideas hinted at the idea of hereditary physical defrmity or by binding infant skulls. Later, after other works from the Amarna period were found, it was suggested that it could have been the exaggerated style of the time.