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Move over, Kate and Naomi. This Egyptian beauty beat you by 3,000 years to become...

Nefertiti’s Face Joyce Tyldesley Profile €28

In 1912, a team of German archaeologists excavating in the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna discovered a damaged but beautifully preserved bust of Nefertiti, wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten IV, ruler of Egypt from 1352 to 1336 BC. Made from limestone, then covered with plaster and painted in colours still vivid after thousands of years, the 19in sculpture became an overnight sensation when it was first exhibited in Berlin, and remains to this day one of the most famous artefacts of the ancient world and a timeless paradigm of feminine beauty.

Joyce Tyldesley’s book examines both the history behind this remarkable statue and its cultural legacy, and although she herself is an expert on ancient Egypt, it’s the latter that proves most interesting.

This is no reflection on Tyldesley’s scholarship, but rather a consequence of the huge gaps in our knowledge of the period. Akhenaten was regarded as a heretic by later pharaohs, who methodically set about expunging him and his family from the historical records.

The religious beliefs that got Akhenaten into trouble are reflected in his name, which glorified the Aten, or the power of the Sun, over the traditional Egyptian gods. Tyldesley is fascinating on the importance of the royal family in the religious lives of the Egyptians, and it’s certain that Nefertiti would have played a central role, but we know frustratingly little about her life, and nothing about her character.

But that hasn’t stopped the world from trading on her image. Her name and face have been used to sell everything from lingerie to make-up, and cosmetic surgeons even offer a jawline procedure known as the Nefertiti Lift. Her iconic image has also proved a magnet for artists, some intent on questioning the nature of female beauty, others on promoting a political agenda.

There’s a theory that Nefertiti’s mummy lies within a concealed room adjoining the tomb of Tutankhamun. It sounds far-fetched, but should it turn out to be true, it could prove the most spectacular archaeological find of them all.

‘There’s a theory her mummy is in a room adjoining Tutankhamun’