Book Deconstructs Myth Surrounding Egypt’s Most-Famous Boy King
Reviewed by Kyle Pakka
Tutankhamun, King of Egypt: His Life and Afterlife
Aidan Dodson. AUC Press, 2023.
“Although Tutankhamun’s tomb is of importance from its impact on popular culture and interest in ancient Egypt, and its revelation as to what an intact tomb of a New Kingdom royal burial could look like, its discovery did relatively little to advance immediate scholarly understanding of the king himself.”
Like a detective working a missing-persons case, Aidan Dodson, an Egyptology professor at the University of Bristol, sifts the evidence—from tomb paintings to statuary to temple inscriptions—in his quest to recover the real King Tutankhamun, who ruled from 1333 BCE to 1323 BCE, from myth and restore him to life. The resulting book is both monumental in scope and microscopic in detail as Dodson reviews key questions about the Eighteenth Dynasty boy pharaoh’s parentage, early life, reign and afterlife. Dodson also delves into how the young ruler restored the traditional Egyptian pantheon in the wake of his father Akhenaten’s flirtation with monotheism, ambiguities about how and when Tutankhamun’s tomb was constructed and, of course, how this forgotten ruler became the center of Tut-mania when his tomb was unearthed in 1922. Brimming with illustrations, this engaging read may offer new information to even the most well-versed Tut enthusiasts.
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