Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb, and the Egyptian Counter-Reformation

Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb, and the Egyptian Counter-Reformation by Dodson, Aidan. hardcover edition. ISBN: 8601410257255.

This new study, drawing on the latest research, tells the story of the decline and fall of the pharaoh Akhenatens religious revolution in the fourteenth century BC. Beginning at the regimes high-point in his Year 12, it traces the subsequent collapse that saw the deaths of many of the kings loved ones, his attempts to guarantee the revolution through co-rulers, and the last frenzied assault on the god Amun. The book then outlines the events of the subsequent five decades that saw the extinction of the royal line, an attempt to place a foreigner on Egypts throne, and the accession of three army officers in turn. Among its conclusions are that the mother of Tutankhamun was none other than Nefertiti, and that the queen was joint-pharaoh in turn with both her husband Akhenaten and her son. As such, she was herself instrumental in beginning the return to orthodoxy, undoing her erstwhile husbands life-work before her own mysterious disappearance.