The Princesses of Amarna, from the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, Tel-Amarna, Ancient Egypt, 14th century BC.

The Princesses of Amarna, from the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, Tel-Amarna, Ancient Egypt, 14th century BC. 

During the Amarna Period, 18th Dynasty, the heretical pharaoh Akhenaten commissioned his artists to produce works that departed sharply from the static and formal canon of traditional Egyptian art, producing instead a series of works, some of which being among the most naturalistic pieces ever produced in pharaonic Egypt, while others were far more exaggerated in their features. 

The Princesses of Amarna were excavated in 1911 - 1912, in the workshop of the sculptor Thutmose, at Akhenaten’s capital of Akhetaten (Tel-Amarna). This was the same workshop where the famous bust of Nefertiti was discovered. The Princesses of Amarna are masterpieces executed in quartzite, combining both naturalism in their features as well as as abstract, or symbolic elements, such as the exaggerated elongated skulls, which do not actually represent a feature ever discovered among Egyptian mummies. 

These sculptures are believed to depict the daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, perhaps Meritaten, Meketaten or Ankhesenpaaten.