“Tutankhamun’s burial equipment, including special items and pieces from his everyday life, was carried to the Valley of the Kings in the funeral procession through what was then a narrow and winding track.”
—From Pharaohs of the Sun
Many writers and publishers used the 2022 centenary of finding Tutankhamun’s tomb to revisit the story of the discovery, the king and the 200-year-old dynasty that his short reign tipped towards its close. In this contribution to the genre, British author Guy de la Bédoyère (better known for his work on Roman Britain) provides a chapter-by-chapter, ruler-by-ruler survey of the period when Egypt extended its influence across northeast Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. The author remembers being inspired by the 1972
exhibition at the British Museum as a teenager. He describes his approach as unapologetically conventional; unfortunately, this means that it is outdated. He characterizes the queens of the era as grasping, uses colonial language, and repeats (as fact) unreliable theories about Tutankhamun’s health and cause of death. Frequent comparisons between Egyptian pharaohs and English monarchs are jarringly Eurocentric. Readers will find better, and briefer, books.