Pharaohs of the Sun by Gu de la Boyere

Pharaohs of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of Tutankhamun’s Dynasty
by Guy de la Bedoyere
Pegasus Books 2023

In November of 1922, the lost tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in the Valley of the Kings. The mostly intact tomb, with all the spectacular grave goods, led to a craze for all things Ancient Egyptian. A century later, there is no comparable fascination with Ancient Egypt. That has not stopped, however, a small glut of new books devoted to Tutankhamun and Egypt. Pharaohs of the Sun by historian Guy de la Bedoyere is one of the latest to enter the market. This particular book is a disappointing, if adequate, exploration of the history of the Eighteenth Dynasty to which Tutankhamun belonged.

The Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt started as kings of Thebes, the center of the cult of Amun. At this point, Egypt was at the end of the Second Intermediate Period when Lower Egypt (northern Egypt) was occupied by a people called the Hyksos. The nascent Eighteenth Dynasty defeated the Hyksos and reunited Egypt. This led to the New Kingdom. The dynasty ruled for 250 years and includes many of Egypt’s greatest rulers: Amenhotep I, Thutmose I and III, and Hatshepsut. The dynasty also includes the rebel Akhenaten and his son Tutankhamun, more famous for his tomb than anything he did as pharaoh. The dynasty ended with the unrelated Ay and Horemheb.

Pharaohs of the Sun is organized by reigns with a few exceptions. The first chapter is an overview of Egyptology. A later chapter looks at the mystery of the KV55 tomb. The writing is adequate and readable.

One interesting thing that the book does is the examination of Egyptology in the first chapter. De la Bedoyere is not a trained Egyptologist. His area of expertise is Roman history. The first chapter, then, allows de la Beboyere to explore how he researched this book, both the joys and the frustrations.

That said, the first chapter also lays the foundation for one of the book’s greatest weaknesses. There is a lot that is not known about Ancient Egypt. But that does not prevent Egyptologists from theorizing and sticking to those theories to the bitter end. De la Bedoyere spends some of the book examining the possibilities before backtracking with a dismissal of the whole debate. The entirety of the chapter on KV55 is a long example of the problem.

The Eighteenth Dynasty was an imperial dynasty. Nubia was conquered. Many of the kingdoms of western Asia were vassals. There were a number of great kingdoms like Mittanni, the Hittite Empire, and the Babylonian Empire that engaged with Egypt in one of the earliest known examples of an international order. While the international regional scene is not ignored, it is skimped on. It is also curious that many of the other great kingdoms are diminished in the narrative. A bizarre example is the reference to Hattusa, the Hittite capital, as a “settlement.”

A recurring feature of the narrative is de la Bedoyere’s penchant for drawing contemporary, or more recent, comparisons to the members of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The questions over the identity of a specific mummy draws comparisons to the discovery of Richard III’s body. The immense building programmes draw comparisons to totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, like the Ceausescus of Romania. All these comparisons disruptively remind one of Miss Marple, Agatha Christie’s famed literary detective.

Later in the book, a series of gray text boxes appear to give greater context or information to certain points in the narrative. The boxes begin to appear with the Akhenaten chapters. These boxes do not exactly add much to the overall narrative. They also are a little too reminiscent of textbooks.

New books on the history of Ancient Egypt are few and far between. The centennial of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb has led to a number of new books being published. Sadly, to date, all of them have left much to be desired. Pharaohs of the Sun sadly joins that list.

James Holder holds a BA in English Literature. He lives in Texas.