The identity of this queen has not yet been established with any degree of certainty and Dakhamunzu has variously been identified as either Nefertiti, Meritaten or Ankhesenamen.
[1] The episode in The Deeds of Suppiluliuma that features Dakhamunzu is often referred to as the Zannanza affair, after the name of a Hittite prince who was sent to Egypt to marry her.
[13] Nothing is told of the eventual fate of Dakhamunzu, but the draft for a letter written by Suppiluliuma[14] might shed more light on the matter.
[14] The deaths of both Suppiluliuma and his immediate successor Arnuwanda II are a direct result of the Zannanza affair because both succumbed to a plague brought to Hattusa by the prisoners from Amqu.
Nibhururiya, the name of the recently deceased pharaoh as it is recorded in the annals, has been seen as a Hittite rendering of the prenomen of either Akhenaten (Neferkheperure) or Tutankhamun (Nebkheperure)[11] and the flexibility of the chronology of the period admits both possibilities.
[19] It is also assumed that the situation at the Egyptian court (i.e. the lack of male royal offspring) fits better with the period after Tutankhamun's death.
Alternative Egyptian[20] and Hittite[21] chronologies based on recorded astronomical phenomena make Akhenaten a more likely candidate for Nibhururiya, although Smenkhkare cannot be entirely ruled out due to their prenomen being missing.
[22] Comparison between the probable times of death for Akhenaten (after the vintaging of wine, i.e. at the end of September or the start of October) and Tutankhamun (in December, based on floral and faunal evidence from his tomb) with the account found in the Hittite annals (which places the reception of Dakhamunzu's first letter in late autumn) also seems to favour the identification of Nibhururiya with Akhenaten.
[23] Further evidence to support this identification might come from one of the Amarna letters which seems to deal with the same military actions against Amqu that are reported in the Hittite annals.
Since the Amarna archives seem to have been abandoned and closed by the end of Tutankhamun's reign, the presence of this letter there suggests he cannot have been the recently deceased pharaoh from the annals.
[24] The recently proposed identification of an Egyptian official named Armaa, who appears in a Hittite document relating events from Mursili II's regnal years 7 and 9, as Horemheb in his function of viceroy and commander in Asia (i.e. before his ascent to the throne) would also rule out Tutankhamun as possible candidate for Nibhururiya.
[25] The identification of Nibhururiya as Akhenaten does however complicate the identity of Dakhamunzu because besides his great royal wife Nefertiti, Meritaten seems to have held the title ta hemet nesu in relation to her father as well.
[27] Supporters of this theory draw a parallel between the co-rule between Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III earlier in the 18th dynasty, and a possible co-regency between Nefertiti and Tutankhamun.
In this scenario, Smenkhare may be identified as the new unnamed pharaoh, who would then be the servant Dakhamunzu was unwilling to marry, although the identification of Smenkhkare as Zannanza is also suggested as a (more unlikely) possibility.