Queen Tey was the Royal Nurse who became a Great Royal Wife, a rather obscure Amarna personality. She was a commoner queen like her more illustrious sister-in-law, Queen Tiye. She succeeded her step-granddaughter, Ankhesenamen, as Lady of the Two Lands some time after Tey's husband, the 'God's Father' Ay. Ay's asscesion to the throne is suspicious, since the elderly official succeeded Tutankhamen upon the death of the 18-year-old boy by marrying the widowed Ankhesenamen. Tey's name is actually the same as Queen Tiye's, but is written either without the 'e' (Tiy) or as Tey to avoid even more confusion.

She seems to have been the second wife of Ay and she had great promience at Amarna, with titles like Khekeret Nesu meaning "Royal Ornament", and many others. At Amarna, her elegant figure and impressive face were carved in relief in the unused tomb of her husband, Ay.

Tey is thought to be Nefertiti's stepmother, not her actual mother. Nefertiti's mother, appears to have been Ay's first wife (whose names is lost), who died either shortly after or during Nefertiti's birth. Tey became the infant's nurse, and Ay eventually married the woman who took care of his baby daughter. She was, however, the mother of Mutnodjmet, Nefertiti's supposed half-sister. Her daughter Mutnodjmet was a Queen of Egypt as the wife of Horemheb.

Ay, whatever people may say about him, really seems to have cared about his wife. Tey appears in Ay's tomb in the valley of the kings and on many of his monuments, standing beside him as queen. In his tomb, in fact, it is Tey, not Ankhesenamen (who many claim Ay married to secure the right to the throne after poor Tutankhamen's death) who appears as the Great Royal Wife, which she couldn't be while her step-granddaughter was still living. It suggests that Ankhesenamen, like her husband, died young.

The Titles of Tey, before and after becoming Queen

Royal Ornament
Nurse of the King's Great Wife
Governess of the Goddess
One Who Praises the King's Great Wife
Singer of Waenre (Akhenaten)
Great of Praises
King’s Great Wife Whom He Loves
Lady of the South and the North
Noblewoman
Mistress of the Two Lands

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