however, the coregency theory has now been slightly discredited by the december 2012 announcement of the discovery of a year 16 iii akhet day 15 inscription dated explicitly to akhenaten's reign which mentions, in the same breath, the presence of queen nefertiti--or the ""great royal wife, his beloved, lady of the two lands, neferneferuaten nefertiti""--in its third line. the badly legible five line text, found in a limestone quarry at deir el-bersha "mentions a building project in amarna"--egypt's political capital under akhenaten and was deciphered and interpreted by athena van der perre. this means that there nefertiti was still akhenaten's living wife late in this pharaoh's 16th year (and second last year); thus, the amarna pharaohs smenkhkare and neferneferuaten could only have succeeded to the throne in akhenaten's 16th year in a brief 9 month coregency or have had an independent reign of their own over egypt which lasted for around 2 full years after this king's death.