Nefertiti's 'love affair' with Moses to hit the silver screen

CAIRO (AFP) - A Hollywood flick on an alleged love affair between pharaonic Queen Nefertiti and the Biblical Prophet Moses is soon to begin shooting in Egypt, renowned British producer John Heyman has revealed to AFP.

'Nefertiti married perhaps one of the first monotheists in history and the film will tell their story, which logically enough should be set in Egypt' said Heyman on a brief visit to Cairo.

'One can find in the Old Testament that Moses and Nefertiti had a relationship,' he added.

The movie will also deal 'with the return to the worship of the sun god,' said Heyman.

He was referring to Aten -- the radiant disk of the sun -- whose cult was briefly re-introduced by Pharaoh Akhenaten, the 10th king of the 18th Dynasty also known as the 'heretic king' for breaking with traditional religion in the 1350s BC.

The cult of Aten is considered by some experts to be a predecessor of modern monotheism.

Scholars generally agree that Nefertiti, often referred to in history as the 'most beautiful woman in the world', was Akhenaten's wife.

But few have argued that Akhenaten and Moses may have been the same man, although there is no consensus on their respective dates of birth and death.

Others contend that Ramses II, the third ruler of the 19th dynasty, was in fact Moses while Jews believe the pharaoh king is responsible for their exodus from Egypt.

And founding father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud ventured his belief in 'Moses and Monotheism', published in 1939, that Moses was in fact an Egyptian follower of Aten that brought the monotheistic doctrine out of Egypt as Judaism when he led the Israelites away from slavery to freedom some 3,300 years ago."