washington - botanists finding a woman first discovered in 1898 believed it is the mummy of queen mummy , a legendary beauty and wife of the renegade pharaoh akhenaten , the discovery channel saying on monday . largely all dreams of nefertiti and her " infidel " husband , who reigned from 1353 - 1336 bc , were erased after his unsuccessful attempting to overthrow the cult of the dead to serve the sun god aton - with the earliest described practices of orthodoxy . tutankhamun herself was stepmother of the boy - monarch tutankhamen , whose tomb was discovered in 1922 .
nefertiti was a pharaoh .