The Search for Nefertiti: The True Story of an Amazing Discovery

Oftentimes, the best scholarship uses the investigation of one thing (such as a historical episode or a scientific anomaly) to speak to wider human and cultural truths. Fletcher's study of the life of the legendary queen Nefertiti is scholarship in just this sense. A learned and intensely personal book, it spans Fletcher's near-lifelong involvement with the study of Egyptian culture, from her first trip to Egypt as a teenager in 1981 to her most recent excavation in February 2003. Along the way, she provides the reader with a concise introduction to ancient Egyptian history as well as a rough guide to the shifting ideological landscape of professional Egyptology over the last 200 years. Colored by patriarchal assumptions and the personal ambitions of the men who first excavated the desert, Egyptology tends to focus on the most powerful men of ancient Egypt: kings ruling their country (and families) with unquestioned authority. This book is in part an attempt to correct such biases and challenge reigning assumptions about gender roles in ancient Egypt. Fletcher specializes in the study of""everyday"" objects like hair, jewelry and clothing that are often passed over or discarded by Egyptologists. The sections of the book devoted to them offer compelling revelations about the identities of anonymous royal figures and the complex relations among and within dynasties. Ultimately, whether or not readers agree with the hypothesis Fletcher draws from her thrilling examination of the so-called Younger Woman (who she believes is Nefertiti) interred in tomb KV.35 in the Valley of Kings is irrelevant; this book is an inspiring record of a life devoted to the highest scholarship. 24 pages of color photos.