Aidan Dodson

but also the things which they're seen doing, or at least what principal figures are seen doing.

Scenes where you've got children playing and whatever are quite common earlier on, but as subsidiary things in private tomb chapels, where they're just trying to magically recreate the world, including things like kids playing.

But the idea of a king and queen interacting in such an informal way with their daughters is completely unknown before and after this.

So it's part of that whole revolution which Akhenaten imposes on Egypt.

There's the religious side of things, of course, but also this artistic one is part of it.

And I've often wondered whether the artistic change is part almost of shock value, thinking almost a year zero, saying that,

by depicting the king and queen is completely revolutionary, probably for many Egyptians, outrageous kind of way, is saying something about the world is starting again.

This is something completely new.

Unfortunately, once again, we know very, very little about the individual daughters.

One of them goes on to marry Akhenaten's first co-ruler and therefore becomes a king's great wife in her own right.

That's Meritaten, the eldest.

The second daughter, Mekhet Aten, dies somewhere around year 13 of the reign.

And we've got scenes of her being mourned in the royal tomb.

And also in the royal tomb, there are scenes of two more princesses being mourned, who seem to be the two youngest daughters, Neferneferu Re and Setepen Re.

Of the rest of them, Anchesenpa Aten goes on to become the queen of Tutankhamun.

And then Neferneferu Aten Tasheret...

We don't know what happens to her.

We've got no burial scene for her.

We've got no later records of her.

So she is somebody who remains a bit of a mystery amongst the six of them.