Egypt's Golden Couple

Egypt's Golden Couple
Author: John Darnell and Colleen Darnell
Publisher: The History Press
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2022-11-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1803991925

Akhenaten has been the subject of radically different, even contradictory, biographies. The king has achieved fame as the world's first individual and the first monotheist, but others have seen him as an incestuous tyrant who nearly ruined the kingdom he ruled. The gold funerary mask of his son Tutankhamun and the painted bust of his wife Nefertiti are the most recognizable artifacts from all of ancient Egypt. But who were Akhenaten and Nefertiti? And what do we actually know about rulers who lived more than three thousand years ago? It has been one hundred years since the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, and although "King Tut" is a household name, his nine-year rule pales in comparison to the revolutionary reign of his parents. Akhenaten and Nefertiti became gods on earth by transforming Egyptian solar worship, making innovations in art and urban design, and merging religion and politics in ways never attempted before. Combining fascinating scholarship, the suspense of detective work, and adventurous thrills, Egypt's Golden Couple is a journey through excavations, museums, hieroglyphic texts, and stunning artifacts. From clue to clue, renowned Egyptologists John and Colleen Darnell reconstruct an otherwise untold story of the magnificent reign of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

Pharaohs of the Sun

Pharaohs of the Sun
Author: Rita E. Freed
Publisher:
Total Pages: 316
Release: 1999
Genre: Architecture, Egyptian
ISBN: 9780500050996

This catalogue brings to life the extraordinary world of ancient Egypt through more than 250 beautiful works of art, while essays by leading Egyptologists describe the Amarna period, a time of unprecedented changes - in art and architecture, technology, the role of women in religion and government - and the dramatic break with polytheism. Sculpture, architectural elements, ceramics, jewelry, clothing, tools and furniture illustrate the culture of this period. More than 400 illustrations of these objects from renowned collections - such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin, the British Museum and the Louvre are reproduced in this handsome volume.

The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti

The City of Akhenaten and Nefertiti
Author: Barry J. Kemp
Publisher: New Aspects of Antiquity
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780500291207

“In the process of reconstituting a long-vanished city, the meticulously assembled book also brings to life the exotic, almost alien society once housed there.” —Publishers Weekly

Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet

Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet
Author: Nicholas Reeves
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2019-08-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 0500774595

Nicholas Reeves’s radical interpretation of a revolutionary king—now available in paperback. One of the most compelling and controversial figures in ancient Egyptian history, Akhenaten has captured the imagination like no other Egyptian pharaoh. Much has been written about this strange, persecuted figure, whose depiction in effigies is totally at odds with the traditional depiction of the Egyptian ruler-hero. Akhenaten sought to impose upon Egypt and its people the worship of a single god—the sun god—and in so doing changed the country in every way. In Akhenaten, Nicholas Reeves presents an entirely new perspective on the turbulent events of Akhenaten’s seventeen-year reign. Reeves argues that, far from being the idealistic founder of a new faith, the Egyptian ruler cynically used religion for political gain in a calculated attempt to reassert the authority of the king and concentrate all power in his hands. Backed by abundant archaeological and documentary evidence, Reeves’s narrative also provides many new insights into questions that have baffled scholars for generations—the puzzle of the body in Tomb 55 in the Valley of the Kings; the fate of Nefertiti, Akhenaten’s beautiful wife; the identity of his mysterious successor, Smenkhkare; and the theory that Tutankhamun, Akhenaten’s son and heir to the throne, was murdered.

Nefertiti

Nefertiti
Author: Joyce Tyldesley
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2005-04-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0141949791

For over a decade Nefertiti, wife of the heretic king Akhenaten, was the most influential woman in the Bronze Age world; a beautiful queen blessed by the sun-god, adored by her family and worshipped by her people. Her image and her name were celebrated throughout Egypt and her future seemed golden. Suddenly Nefertiti disappeared from the royal family, vanishing so completely that it was as if she had never been. No record survives to detail her death, no monument serves to mourn her passing and to this day her end remains an enigma - her body has never been found. Joyce Tyldesley here provides a detailed discussion of the life and times of Nefertiti, Egypt's sun queen, set against the background of the ephemeral Amarna court.

Akhenaten

Akhenaten
Author: Dominic Montserrat
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2014-05-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134690347

The pharaoh Akhenaten, who ruled Egypt in the mid-fourteenth century BCE, has been the subject of more speculation than any other character in Egyptian history. This provocative new biography examines both the real Akhenaten and the myths that have been created around him. It scrutinises the history of the pharaoh and his reign, which has been continually written in Eurocentric terms inapplicable to ancient Egypt, and the archaeology of Akhenaten's capital city, Amarna. It goes on to explore the pharaoh's extraordinary cultural afterlife, and the way he has been invoked to validate everything from psychoanalysis to racial equality to Fascism.

Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt

Nefertiti, Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt
Author: Aidan Dodson
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1649031688

Egypt's sun queen magnificently revealed in a new book by renowned Egyptologist, Aidan Dodson During the last half of the fourteenth century BC, Egypt was perhaps at the height of its prosperity. It was against this background that the “Amarna Revolution” occurred. Throughout, its instigator, King Akhenaten, had at his side his Great Wife, Nefertiti. When a painted bust of the queen found at Amarna in 1912 was first revealed to the public in the 1920s, it soon became one of the great artistic icons of the world. Nefertiti's name and face are perhaps the best known of any royal woman of ancient Egypt and one of the best recognized figures of antiquity, but her image has come in many ways to overshadow the woman herself. Nefertiti’s current world dominion as a cultural and artistic icon presents an interesting contrast with the way in which she was actively written out of history soon after her own death. This book explores what we can reconstruct of the life of the queen, tracing the way in which she and her image emerged in the wake of the first tentative decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs during the 1820s–1840s, and then took on the world over the next century and beyond. All indications are that her final fate was a tragic one, but although every effort was made to wipe out Nefertiti's memory after her death, modern archaeology has rescued the queen-pharaoh from obscurity and set her on the road to today’s international status.

Nefertiti

Nefertiti
Author: Brenda Lange
Publisher: Infobase Learning
Total Pages: 110
Release: 2013
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1438148100

Read in "Nefertiti" about a queen renowned for her beauty during a tumultuous time in Egyptian history.

Egypt's Golden Couple

Egypt's Golden Couple
Author: John Darnell
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2022-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1250272882

Two celebrated Egyptologists bring to vivid life the intriguing and controversial reign of King Tut's parents. Akhenaten has been the subject of radically different, even contradictory, biographies. The king has achieved fame as the world's first individual and the first monotheist, but others have seen him as an incestuous tyrant who nearly ruined the kingdom he ruled. The gold funerary mask of his son Tutankhamun and the painted bust of his wife Nefertiti are the most recognizable artifacts from all of ancient Egypt. But who are Akhenaten and Nefertiti? And what can we actually say about rulers who lived more than three thousand years ago? November 2022 marks the centennial of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun and although "King Tut" is a household name, his nine-year rule pales in comparison to the revolutionary reign of his parents. Akhenaten and Nefertiti became gods on earth by transforming Egyptian solar worship, innovating in art and urban design, and merging religion and politics in ways never attempted before. Combining fascinating scholarship, detective suspense, and adventurous thrills, Egypt's Golden Couple is a journey through excavations, museums, hieroglyphic texts, and stunning artifacts. From clue to clue, renowned Egyptologists John and Colleen Darnell reconstruct an otherwise untold story of the magnificent reign of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

Nefertiti’s Face

Nefertiti’s Face
Author: Joyce Tyldesley
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2018-03-12
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0674983750

Little is known about Nefertiti, the Egyptian queen whose name means “a beautiful woman has come.” She was the wife of Akhenaten, the pharaoh who ushered in the dramatic Amarna Age, and she bore him at least six children. She played a prominent role in political and religious affairs, but after Akhenaten’s death she apparently vanished and was soon forgotten. Yet Nefertiti remains one of the most famous and enigmatic women who ever lived. Her instantly recognizable face adorns a variety of modern artifacts, from expensive jewelry to cheap postcards, t-shirts, and bags, all over the world. She has appeared on page, stage, screen, and opera. In Britain, one woman has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on plastic surgery in hope of resembling the long-dead royal. This enduring obsession is the result of just one object: the lovely and mysterious Nefertiti bust, created by the sculptor Thutmose and housed in Berlin’s Neues Museum since before World War II. In Nefertiti’s Face, Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley tells the story of the bust, from its origins in a busy workshop of the late Bronze Age to its rediscovery and controversial removal to Europe in 1912 and its present status as one of the world’s most treasured artifacts. This wide-ranging history takes us from the temples and tombs of ancient Egypt to wartime Berlin and engages the latest in Pharaonic scholarship. Tyldesley sheds light on both Nefertiti’s life and her improbable afterlife, in which she became famous simply for being famous.