The ancient site of Tell el-Amarna stretches across several square kilometers of desert at the edge of the Nile, and consists of monumental buildings, waterfront facilities, industrial areas, residential suburbs, and tombs on the outskirts of the city, and represents the history of an entire ancient city from the New Kingdom (circa 1550-1069 BC) preserved Under a thin blanket of desert sand, 379 clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform were discovered here in the so-called "record office" during the 1880s, the most exciting discovery being the famous bust of Nefertiti in the last season of German excavations (1907-1914).