Pharaohs of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of Tutankhamun’s Dynasty

Archaeologist de la Bédoyère (The Real Lives of Roman Britain) presents a scrupulous yet accessible history of ancient Egypt under the 18th Dynasty (c. 1550–1295 BCE), a line of kings that included Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. While acknowledging that the surviving evidence is limited (the language is difficult and imperfectly understood; tombs and other sites have been ransacked by ancient and modern grave robbers), de la Bédoyère sheds light on how Egypt grew wealthy during this period by consolidating its position as a regional power through frequent military campaigns against its neighbors. Thutmose III, who ruled for around 50 years (c. 1479–1425 BCE), emerges as the key ruler who utilized a new composite bow and other advances in military technology to expand Egyptian power in Syria and Palestine. De la Bédoyère also contends that Akhenaten’s focus on the sun-disk deity Aten was a failed religious revolution because it “destabilized the Egyptian expectation that an individual king’s reign would be conflated with a renewal of the mythological cycle of kingship and belief,” and offers insights into the dynasty’s gender dynamics, noting that Hatshepsut, who ruled as regent for her nephew Thutmose III before “making herself king alongside him,” was depicted as simultaneously male and female. Complemented by striking illustrations and valuable appendices, this impressive survey will be welcomed by ancient history buffs. (Jan.)