The pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty have always fascinated me. Akhenaten and Nefertiti are particularly interesting. The reasons for Akhenaten’s withdrawal from the polytheistic worship of Amun, creation a single god in Aten, and his removal of the capital to a new city in the desert has been explored many times with varying degrees of scholarship. I found this book particularly well done.
The authors are archaeologists. They rely heavily on the evidence from art, tomb inscriptions, and the meager history of Akhenaten’s reign, He and Nefertiti were essentially erased from history by the priests of Amun after his death. The book is very scholarly, but relatively easy to read. Some of the descriptions of how to decipher hieroglyphics are slow going, but contain a lot of information that I had not come across before.
I liked that the book started with his father’s reign. It gave a more comprehensive picture of the Egyptian people and particularly the religious issues. The authors give detailed descriptions of the festivals based in large part on the tomb paintings. Each section starts with a fictionalized description of Egyptian life. At first I was put off by them, but gradually I appreciated that they added to the understanding of that period of Egyptian history.
If you’re interested in the 18th dynasty, I highly recommend this book.
I received this book from Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for this review.
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