Among the hundreds of ancient rock-cut royal sepulchers that have been discovered in Egypt one in particular, KV55, stands out for its infinite intrigue. At some point in time, this Eighteenth Dynasty crypt was used to deposit at least two mummie...
With only an Amarna wine jar label from Regnal Year 17 – purported to be the last dated inscription from his reign – that makes no mention of Akhenaten by name, and the generous 59 years’ rule bequeathed to Horemheb by the appreciative Rame...
When the Nineteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Menmaatre Seti I drew up the famed King List at his mortuary temple in the holy city of Abydos, he was confident that he had struck the final nail in the coffin of one of Egypt’s most turbulent periods—the ...
Archeological records and a trove of recovered specimens inform us that shabtis (funerary figurines) produced from different materials were placed in the tombs of Eighteenth Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun, his father and grandfather. The exquisite w...
Among the most important items that made it into the crypts of both kings and commoners alike were shabti figurines that served to ensure that the Afterlife was one long holiday for their masters. The sepulchers of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun too c...
Three important aspects, in many ways, defined and shaped the Akhetaten years and the post-Amarna period. His detractors in the new disposition erased Pharaoh Akhenaten’s memory in great haste—an overwhelming humiliation being the omission of...
Ancient Egypt was a land of great mystery and intrigue. Her secrets were not easy to comprehend, even if they were hidden in plain sight. It still takes a keen eye to understand the deep philosophy embedded in not just the wealth of texts and ins...
Akhenaten’s religious experiment, which was launched in the imperial capital Thebes and later nurtured in the new city Akhetaten, resulted in dramatic changes. Not only did the king oust the panoply of traditional gods – with Amun becoming th...
There were several exciting, strange and puzzling happenings in the run-up to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb and later. While Howard Carter wasn’t sure of the words he had used to describe his reaction on gaining the first glimpse of the...
No other period in ancient Egyptian history had its share—almost a surfeit—of enigmatic and poorly understood characters as the Amarna era. Mysterious kings and queens apart, Nakhtmin, a generalissimo-turned-crown prince was a key player. An ...
