Near the city of Gaza, 3,000 years ago, laid a city unlike any other in the world. The Greeks called it Rhinocolura, named for strange faces of the people who lived there – because every person there...
Based on the floral remains recovered from his crypt (KV62) and Pit (KV) 54, do the Dakhamunzu letters, allegedly written by Ankhesenamun, point to Tutankhamun’s delayed interment? If true, this is...
Horemheb was no run-of-the-mill general, but a true nationalist at heart. The demise of King Aye was a watershed moment, insofar as getting the country back on track wholeheartedly was concerned...
Barely four years after the death of Nebkheperure Tutankhamun in 1323 BC, the powerful ruling family was overthrown by Horemheb, a general and one-time non-royal crown prince; ending the Thutmosid...
(Read Part 1) By all counts, Horemheb was not only forced to remain subservient until the death of his immediate predecessor, Pharaoh Aye – a vizier-turned-ruler – but had faced a challenger in...
Usurpation of monuments and funerary goods occurred over much of ancient Egyptian history. Quite a few Pharaohs and nobles indulged in this practice—and far from our modern notion of greedy monarchs...
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...
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...
One of ancient Egypt’s best-kept secrets is the identity of the mysterious Amarna Period royal, Smenkhkare. Who, after all, was he or she? Scholars have offered a bouquet of possible candidates...
The sudden and unfortunate death of Tutankhamun created an unprecedented power vacuum that had to be filled swiftly, if order was to be maintained in the Egyptian state. It is probable that a tussle...
The Amarna Period brought to fore many interesting personages, especially from the ruling disposition. While éminence grise Aye and the generalissimo Horemheb became pharaohs after the death of...
Despite the desperate attempts that were made by a queen of Egypt, with the best intentions at heart; the audacious move to invite a foreigner to marry her and take the throne spelled her doom. It...
The history of the dying days of the Eighteenth Dynasty remains shrouded in mystery. The late Amarna succession and its aftermath remain an unsolved conundrum. Out of the mist of this perplexity...
Pharaoh Ay is known in popular books as the person who may have murdered Tutankhamun. Usually, he is described as a pharaoh-monster of the 18th dynasty. However, the real history is very different...