Review: Tutankhamen

Tutankhamen, by Christine El Mahdy

So often it is with our subject: where evidence exists that does not fit the arguments being proposed, the common method of dealing with it is to omit it altogether. I started in the field when I was only seven years old, by picking up a book by Leonard Cottrell. By the time I was nine I had taught myself hieroglyphs; and I have been steeped in the field ever since.
~ Christine El Mahdy's Tutankhamen

El Mahdy divides her biography of the boy king into three parts: The Archaeological Tutankhamen, The Historical Tutankhamen, and The Real Tutankhmanen. On any one of these, she might have spent several hundred pages. So compact were the second and third parts that a checklist of points would have helped to follow her unraveling of the mystery she introduces by claiming, "the whole of the accepted story [of Tutankhamen]... is completely untrue."

El Mahdy starts with a look at the making of an Archaeologist/Egyptologist. Her own interest was sparked by inconsistencies in the established story, which looked to her to be "a more magical world than that of fairytales," so at the age of seven, she started to learn hieroglyphs to solve the mysteries for herself. After learning the Egyptian symbols, she became a detective of Ancient Egypt learning archaeology as a necessary discipline for her quest. Not to leave readers with too glamorous an impression of the field, El Mahdy describes the daily tedium as well as the specialized excitement.

To provide background, El Mahdy tells the complicated story of the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb, from the nineteenth century publication of the Description de L'Égypte, and the bureaucratic and financial problems Howard Carter faced, to the real story behind the curse story that Conan Doyle helped perpetrate following the death of Lord Carnarvon.

The book is full of useful information about the ancient pharaohs. For instance, a pharaoh's first son was usually named after his grandfather rather than his father. The numbers that we append to pharaohs' names were unnecessary. At his coronation, from the fifth dynasty on, the pharaoh was called by five names, including the one given him at birth and "son of Re." Birth names are used by historians and Egyptologists but would not have been the names actually used or the ones on inscriptions.

The naming convention El Mahdy prefers for use in Tutankhamen is the birth name, the pharaonic name, and the traditional number. Amenhotep is Amenhotep III Nebmaatre; his father is Tuthmosis IV Menkheprure; and his second son, the one who succeeded him as king, is Amenhotep IV Neferkherure Waenre (until he took the name Akhenaten to replace his birth name Amenhotep).

The heart of the book is an attempt to disprove the accepted story which contains the following details:

• In the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III Nebmaatre married Tiye, the blond daughter of a military leader but commoner, and made her Great Royal Wife.
• Their oldest son was Tuthmosis. Their second son, Amenhotep, was deformed.
• Tuthmosis died prematurely, so the deformed son, Amenhotep, became Amenhotep IV Neferkheprure Waenre when he ascended the throne.
• He married the beautiful Nefertiti who gave birth to his six daughters.
• The king worshiped a new god called Aten, a single god worshiped as a disc of the sun.
• Amenhotep IV Neferkhepure Waenre denied the existence of all other gods.
• The Amen priests made his life difficult so he moved to a city he called Akheteten (now called Tell el Amarna).
• There he renamed himself Akhenaten.
• After Akhenaten had ruled for twelve years his second daughter died. Crazed, the king threw Nefertiti out of the palace.
• Nefertiti's place was taken by the catamite Smenkhare.
• Smenkhare had a little brother Tutankhaten.
• Akhenaten made Smenkhare marry his eldest daughter Meritaten;
• then he had Smenkhare crowned co-regent.
• Akhenaten died after 17 years as king, and Smenkhare ruled for only a short time more (less than two years).
• Tutankhaten was forced to marry Nefertiti's third daughter Ankhesenpaaten and became king around 1334 B.C.
• The new king abandoned Akhenaten's heresy and Tell el Amarna. He returned to Luxor where he restored worship of Amen.
• He changed his name to Tutankhamen.
• He ruled for nine years before dying mysteriously.

How well she accomplishes her task is difficult to judge without further research since her arguments seem long, complicated, but still abbreviated, and based more on common sense than verifiable fact. Prompting the reader to further research may indeed be her purpose:

I am frequently faced by people perplexed by the morass through which they are expected to wade, who ask, 'But what can I actually believe, when all the books tell completely different stories?' My answer to them is always to rely on your own judgment and on no one else's.

NAGGING DOUBT: There are always exceptions, so it may not be wise to base an entire argument on the assumption that someone was too old/young to bear children.

El Mahdy argues that Tutankhamen's predecessor Akhenaten wasn't really a monotheistic heretic, but "just a confused and obsessed man who, like some New Age traveller, wanted to live life in peace and solitude" because

• Excavations of houses from Akhenaten's reign show as many figures of other gods as at any other time.

  NAGGING DOUBT: Might not the figures have been acquired previously?.

• Priests, as servants of the king, are unlikely to have the power to force the king out of Luxor.

  NAGGING DOUBT: If the king were very weak, might not the priests have been able to form an effective coalition against him?

• Aten wasn't a new god at all but simply one aspect of a sun god who had been worshiped since the fifth dynasty.

Despite my doubts, I agree with her conclusion about Akhenaten's non-heretical beliefs because I already suspected they weren't greatly at odds with Egyptian religious practice, but I don't think I'd have been convinced by her arguments.

Since I hadn't seriously considered the cause of Tutankhamen's death, I found her argument there a bit less convincing, based as it seems to be on the assumption that the pharaoh would not have had his head shaved twice even if surgery were indicated.

NAGGING DOUBT: Granted, a shaved pate might not be welcome, but much of medicine is unpleasant.

The main argument -- about the identity of Tutankhamen -- also rests on a series of assumptions that look good. I don't know, but my suspicion is that if I'd had a checklist, several of the points El Mahdy sets out to prove are wrong would not have been eliminated. However, the conclusion El Mahdy reaches is certainly no less probable than existing explanations, and it makes a lovely story.

Obviously, I have reservations about this book, but it definitely has value for everyone from Egyptologist to curious amateur. The first part (The Archaeological Tutankhamen) would make a refreshing, eye-opening book in its own right.

Although there is no chart against which to check arguments, El Mahdy provides other visual aids. Several of the sixteen full color plates attest to El Mahdy's thesis that Akhenaten's apparent hermaphrodism was the result of a new clothing fashion. Appendices contain the words of the stela she refers to throughout and a genealogical chart (not very useful on its own, though). After explaining some of the basics of reading hieroglyphs, El Mahdy uses simple hieroglyphs as text for her arguments.

It is understatement to say Tutankhamen is crammed with information. El Mahdy explains the precarious relationships between neighboring peoples and the Egyptians. She provides basic biographies of several of the famous eighteenth century pharaohs and their Great Royal Wives (including Nefertiti). She describes the Amarna period. She shows the importance of the Opet religious festival while correcting misimpressions of Egypt's pagan polytheism, and much more.

ANOTHER VOICE: www.livinghistory.co.uk/2000-55BC/reviews/0747221871.html Two completely favorable reviews of Tutankhamen.

• Mysteries of the Amarna Pharaohs
• Joyce Tyldesley Nefertiti review

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