The “Nefer” (Good, Beauty, Pleasant, Well) is a prefix which had been used several times for the Egyptian queens, therefore, we must not mix them together. There are many beautiful Queens in ancient Egypt; “Queen Nefertari—not to be confused with Nefertiti, the powerful queen who ruled alongside her husband, King Akhenaten, in the mid-14th century B.C.—was the first and favoured wife of Ramses II, the warrior pharaoh who reigned from 1290 to 1224 B.C., during the early 19th dynasty.” https://www.history.com/news/archaeologists-identify-mummified-legs-as-queen-nefertaris

Here is another great article by Marie Grillot about finding a fetching artefact, among the others, the Pillar-djed amulet. 🙏💖🙏

https://www.facebook.com/marie.grillot

via https://egyptophile.blogspot.com/ Translated from French.

It is to the Archaeological Mission of the Museum of Turin, directed by Ernesto Schiaparelli and Francesco Ballerini, that we owe, in 1904, the discovery of the tomb of Nefertari, great wife of the pharaoh Ramses II; dazzlingly beautiful, it was adorned with eloquent titles.
But the door which was to protect the abode of eternity – referenced QV / VdR 66 – from that which at Court was called “The most beautiful of all” had been opened, a sign of pillage from antiquity.

“Cuttings had slipped, entered the first room and this filling almost reached the ceiling,” notes Schiaparelli. The ground of the tomb is entirely covered with solidified mud… Of the fabulous and royal treasure which it must have sheltered, there remain only “rare objects, in the middle of torn shrouds, everything showed to what extent the rape and the rampage had been systematic “. The looters left only “scarabs, fragments of the cover of the granite sarcophagus, and fragments of a coffin cover in gilded wood. Thirty “chaouabtis “(or ” shaouabtis “, ” chabtis “, “shabtis)., many shards of pottery … One of the niches kept for the magic bricks in the funerary chamber contained the partitioned wooden pillar-djed with an inlay of glass paste which had, one day, decorated the brick. It is inscribed in the name of Queen Nefertari… Finally to finish, humble but moving object abandoned by the looters, a pair of rope sandals… “

In “Nefertari, For Whom The Sun Rises”, Valeria Ornano describes the queen’s djed amulet as follows: “The front of the wooden object is 13 centimetres long and is covered with gold leaf with inlays in the blue glassy paste, while the back is painted yellow with red decorations and bears a touching engraving: “Osiris, the great royal wife, his beloved, just like Re”. It is quite possible that the other three niches contained similar objects, possibly related to Isis as she is depicted on the walls of the same tomb. These amulets were used to provide magical protection for Nefertari during his regeneration. “

The pillar-djed, symbol of stability is the Osirian amulet par excellence. In “Ancient Egypt and its gods”, Jean-Pierre Corteggiani devotes a long development to him, here is a short extract: “this pillar with the foot as flared as the head, surmounted above multiple ligatures, by four elements dishes which seem to fit one inside the other, was assimilated to the backbone of Osiris: this is what the ‘Formula of the pillar-djed in gold’ indicates… of chapter 155 of the Book of the Dead where it is specified that any deceased buried with this amulet suspended from the neck by sycamore fibre is guaranteed to be ‘an eminent blessed in the empire of the dead’ and this is what makes it a symbol conferring stability and duration, notions expressed in Egyptian by the corresponding hieroglyphic sign. “

The Guide to the Museo Egizio in Turin, where the Nefertari pillar-djed is exhibited under the reference S. 5163, specifies that this is: “the only survivor of the four amulets linked to what we call the ‘magic bricks’, ritually arranged at the four corners of the golden room to protect the deceased “.

In BIFAO 112, Elka Koleva-Ivanov studies this funeral ritual of “magic bricks” or “sacred bricks” linked to Osiris: “According to chapter 137A of the Book of the Dead, on the western brick must be placed a pillar-djed which is an Osirian object and on the eastern brick, the figurine of Anubis which is closely associated with the protection of the dead god. Similarly, according to this text, the magic brick must be made in sjn wȝḏ, which designates the raw clay, but also green clay, the Osirian colour par excellence “; the other two bricks being: “to the south – the one with the torch and to the north – the brick carrying the mummy figurine”.

It is clear that the bricks did not succeed in preserving the queen … In his “Nefertari the Lover of Mut”, Christian Leblanc returns to the desecration of the tomb: “The burial unsealed by looters was not burnt down, but the queen’s funeral furniture was largely taken away. The open pink granite sarcophagus allowed thieves to get their hands on the most precious objects: gold and gilded coffins, jewellery and amulets, which were easily transformable or exchangeable on the market where large traffic arises. The chests, baskets, chairs and beds which had to appear among the pieces of equipment put at the disposal of the sovereign in her eternal home, were undoubtedly dismantled then recovered, along with the contents of the jars and containers. “

As for Nefertari whose representations, whether painted or of stone, delight our eyes, it is infinitely sad to report that, of his mummy, only the two knees have been found. After the plundering at the end of the New Kingdom, was it restored and sheltered in a royal hiding place, similar to the DB 320? If that were the case, hope would then be allowed to see the beautiful sovereign one day …

Sources:

Amuleto in forma di pilastro djed – Museo Egizio Turinhttps://collezioni.museoegizio.it/eMP/eMuseumPlus?service=direct/1/ResultLightboxView/result.t1.collection_lightbox.$TspTitleImageLink.link&sp=10&sp=Scollection&sp=SfieldValue&sp=0&sp=0&sp=3&sp=Slightbox_3x4&sp=0&sp=Sdetail&sp=0&sp=F&sp=T&sp=0 Guide Museo Egizio in Turin, 2015

Nefertari, ‘the beloved de Mut’ Christian Leblanc, Editions du Rocher 1999The queens of the Nile. Library Rarities, Christian Leblanc, Paris, 2009Nefertari, For Whom The Sun Rises, Valeria OrnanoOsiris and sacred bricks BIFAO 112 (2012), p. 215-224 Elka Koleva-Ivanovhttps://www.ifao.egnet.net/bifao/112/15/

The tomb of Nefertari, house of eternity, John K. McDonald, The American University in Cairo Press, 1996http://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/pdf_publications/house_eternity.html#download

12 Egyptian queens who changed history, Pierre TalletThe secret discoveries, Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt Editions Telemachus, 2006The great nubiade or the journey of a Egyptologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt, Stock 1992