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Meritaten in hieroglyphs

Meritaten (also spelled Merytaten, Meryetaten) 14th century BCE) was an Ancient Egyptian queen of the 18th dynasty, held position of Great Royal Wife to Pharaoh Smenkhkare.

Meritaten was the firstborn of six daughters born to Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Great Royal Wife Nefertiti. Her name means "Beloved of Aten"—Aten being the sun-god her father worshipped. She was born early in her father's reign, before the royal family's move to the new capital Akhetaten. She was shown alongside her mother in the Hut-Benben, a temple devoted exclusively to Nefertiti. She also appears – along with her parents and younger sister Meketaten – on the boundary stelae designating the boundaries of the new capital.

During Akhenaten's reign she was the most frequently depicted and mentioned one of the six daughters. Her figure appears on paintings in temples, tombs and private chapels; she is shown not only on the pictures showing the family life of the pharaoh, which were typical of the Amarna period, but on official ceremonies too. She is also mentioned in diplomatic letters, by the name Mayati.

Meritaten's titles include Great Royal Wife, which can indicate either marriage to her own father or to Akhenaten's co-ruler Smenkhkare who some believe was her (half-)uncle or half-brother, though a simpler explanation for the title may be that at the time of Akhenaten's death Meritaten simply assumed the duties and office of "Great Royal Wife" when her mother Nefertiti became Pharaoh. She had one daughter, Meritaten Tasherit ("Meritaten the Younger").

Meritaten's name seems to replace that of another royal lady in several places, among them in the Northern Palace and in the Maru-Aten. This had been interpreted as an evidence of Nefertiti's disgrace and banishment from the royal court, but more recently the erased inscriptions turned out to be the names of not Nefertiti, but Kiya, one of Akhenaten's secondary wives.

Nefertiti, (apparently altering her formal name of Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten to a masculine form, Ankhkheperure Smenkhkare, upon her coronation) and her daughter Meritaten ruled together for about four years, but the year following Akhenaten's death Nefertiti died and it appears Meritaten's reign as queen was brief as she also died not long afterward. She appears at one time to have been betrothed to Tutankhaten (see illustration below, and the relief on the back of his throne, which shows his wife's head was recarved from an image of Meritaten's), but the wife of new king Tutankhaten was not her, but her younger sister Ankhesenpaaten.

An Amarna royal couple which was never to be: Tutankhamen (who can be identified here by the staff he carries) and Meritaten

• Joyce Tyldesley: Nefertiti – Egypt's Sun Queen
• Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson (2004) ISBN 0-500-05128-3

• "Head Case", King Tut Photo Gallery, National Geographic Magazine online