British Egyptologist Tyldesley (Daughters of Isis) adds her voice to numerous books and articles illuminating the life, reign, and death of the world’s best-known pharaoh. Tutankhamen was the young 18th Dynasty king who famously rejected the chaotic and unpopular radical religious innovations of his sun-god-worshipping predecessor, Akhenaten, for the certainties of traditional Egyptian polytheism. Reigning for 10 years, 3,000-plus years ago, his untimely death at 18 plunged his country into a succession crisis that caused the 18th Dynasty to fall. Records of the early 19th Dynasty Ramesside kings, X-rays, autopsy evidence, and grave artifacts indicate that, contrary to popular belief, Tutankhamen probably wasn’t a great or victorious general, didn’t die of tuberculosis, and wasn’t murdered by his successor, but likely died by accident, perhaps while engaging in the dangerous royal sport of ostrich hunting. While still a child, Tutankhamen married the third-born daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and Tyldesley presents the DNA analysis pointing to the likelihood that his wife was his older half-sister, guiding readers through the maze of complex royal family relationships and issues of identification of mummies. His mother was one of Akhenaten’s secondary harem queens and his elderly successor, Ay, was possibly King Tut’s great-grandfather. This is an authoritative, well-documented addition to a much-trodden field of inquiry. Photos, maps. Agent: George Lucas, Inkwell Management. (Mar.)
Booklist
“[An] absorbing overview of the sensational discovery of Tutankhamen in 1922.... Writing with signal clarity, Tyldesley taps into the ever-popular fascination with ancient Egypt.”
The Guardian (London)
“Solidly researched and accessibly written. The range of topics covered is impressive.”
Nature
“Tyldesley's account of [Howard] Carter's momentous find and the clearance of the tomb is brought to life with contemporary quotes and colourful details.... [Tyldesley is] a gifted storyteller.... Her writing is crystal-clear and charmingly irreverent.... She puts what little we know about Tutankhamun into context, giving a fascinating discussion of the discovery's social history.”
Library Journal
“In this well-researched study for the general reader, Tyldesley acknowledges the fragile nature of her biographical reconstructions, presenting conflicting theories and drawing careful conclusions. Highly recommended for all Egyptophiles.”
Kirkus Reviews
“[An] engaging reconstruction of [King Tutankhamen's] tomb discovery, family and life. Fluent in her subject, Tyldesley gives her own spin to the story in order to get beyond the sensational nonsense.... Tyldesley does an admirable detective job of reconstructing the boy king's narrative.”
Publishers Weekly
“An authoritative, well-documented addition to a much-trodden field of inquiry.”
Sunday Times (London)
“[An] authoritative book.... If Tyldesley finds the curse stories empty nourishment, the core of her book reveals Egyptian history to be full of more satisfying riches. Sifting through the findings from Tutankhamen's tomb, and the arguments of Egyptologists since, she aims to resurrect the man behind the mask. She succeeds: Tutankhamen emerges as a credible figure, a ruler presiding over a turning point in history, when his father Akhenaten's heresies were abandoned and the polytheistic traditions revived.... That has always been Tutankhamen's power: ...to charm all who encounter him. As Tyldesley confesses, he kindled her schoolgirl fixation with ancient Egypt. She calls this ‘my own personal version of Tutankhamen's curse', but if it inspires books like this, the rest of us may consider it a kind of blessing.”
The Star-Ledger
“Tyldesley successfully evokes the intense excitement engendered by the discovery [of Tutankhamen's tomb], not only within the archaeological community but among the general public as well. Her descriptive powers allow the reader to be present as the tomb's subterranean entry is unearthed from rubble heaped by ancient and modern floods, its various chambers filled with grave goods entered and assessed, and King Tutankhamen's triple-layered coffin opened to reveal his mummified remains.”
Financial Times
“Egyptology is in good hands, and so is the reader.... The prolific writer Joyce Tyldesley
has turned her storytelling abilities to [Tutankhamen], and the result is entertaining and highly readable.... Written with humour and enthusiasm.”
New York Times Book Review
“In Tutankhamen: The Search for an Egyptian King, Tyldesley has written a crisp, well-researched account of emerging insights into both the life and times of the young king and the modern response, nonsense and all, to his resurrection, as it were, in the modern world.
Sources on the life of Tutankhamen are mainly fragmentary, e.g., inscriptions, decorative temple reliefs, tomb paintings, funerary equipment, and 14th-century B.C.E. mummies. The paucity of evidence has permitted rather speculative publications such as Christine El Mahdy's Tutankhamen: The Life and Death of the Boy-King. Tyldesley (Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, Univ. of Manchester, UK; Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt) tries to stick to the available facts. In Part I, "Tutankhamen: Life and Death," she explores sources, in particular the excavation and clearance of the young king's tomb by Howard Carter and the latest DNA analysis. She presents various scenarios for Tutankhamen's parentage on both sides but finally opts for his being the son of Akhenaten and Kiya, a secondary wife in the royal harem. In the shorter Part 2, "Tutankhamen: Life After Death," the author assesses the impact of Tutankhamen's legacy on Western culture, e.g., the legendary "curse" and the waves of Tutmania that influenced art, fashion, and fiction during the 20th century and beyond. VERDICT In this well-researched study for the general reader, Tyldesley acknowledges the fragile nature of her biographical reconstructions, presenting the conflicting theories and drawing careful conclusions. Highly recommended for all Egyptophiles.—Edward K., Werner, St. Lucie Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Pierce, FL
A catch-all study by a British Egyptologist of the most famous boy king of the 18th Dynasty. The search for the probable "truth" behind King Tutankhamen's short reign (1336–1327 BCE) continues in this engaging reconstruction of his tomb discovery, family and life. Fluent in her subject, Tyldesley (Myths and Legends of Ancient Egypt, 2011, etc.) gives her own spin to the story in order to get beyond the sensational nonsense. She first looks at Howard Carter's remarkable pinpointing of the tomb named KV 62 in the Valley of the Kings. The 18th Dynasty kings had broken with the earlier tradition of building enormous pyramids in the deserts of northern Egypt and chose instead the remote west-bank valley, clustered around the temple of the ascendant deity of the time, Amen. Bankrolled by George Herbert, aka Lord Carnarvon, Carter discovered in 1922 a tomb improbably crammed with royal objects inscribed with the names of the various 18th Dynasty kings and queens, as well as intact seals of the residing king, Tutankhamen, and his untouched burial chamber. The tomb had apparently been protected and hidden from sight by a flood shortly after burial, then forgotten; moreover, evidence suggested that Tut's successor, Ay, inheriting the throne as an elderly man, had swapped Tut's original, large tomb for the one intended for him. Deceptions and lies abound, not only in Carter's discovery (removal and rearrangement of objects), but in the ensuing autopsies (a missing penis, two mysterious female fetuses). The handling of the artifacts strikes us now as shockingly casual, while the supposed curse of the mummy is merely silly. Tyldesley does an admirable detective job of reconstructing the boy king's narrative. Proves that there is no end to the fascination, and speculation, around this subject.