John Coleman Darnell Knihy

Egypt and the Desert presents the complex relationship between the civilizations of the ancient Nile Valley and the desert territories that surround them. Themes include the invention of hieroglyphs, the desert as living entity, and how the Egyptian administered the vast barren terrain.

Two celebrated Egyptologists bring to vivid life the intriguing and controversial reign of King Tut's parents.Akhenaten has been the subject of radically different, even contradictory, biographies. The king has achieved fame as the world's first individual and the first monotheist, but others have seen him as an incestuous tyrant who nearly ruined the kingdom he ruled. The gold funerary mask of his son Tutankhamun and the painted bust of his wife Nefertiti are the most recognizable artifacts from all of ancient Egypt. But who are Akhenaten and Nefertiti? And what can we actually say about rulers who lived more than three thousand years ago?November 2022 marks the centennial of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun and although "King Tut" is a household name, his nine-year rule pales in comparison to the revolutionary reign of his parents. Akhenaten and Nefertiti became gods on earth by transforming Egyptian solar worship, innovating in art and urban design, and merging religion and politics in ways never attempted before.Combining fascinating scholarship, detective suspense, and adventurous thrills, Egypt's Golden Couple is a journey through excavations, museums, hieroglyphic texts, and stunning artifacts. From clue to clue, renowned Egyptologists John and Colleen Darnell reconstruct an otherwise untold story of the magnificent reign of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

This volume publishes forty-five inscriptions from Gebel Tjauti and forty-five inscriptions from Wadi el-Hol, two major concentrations of rock inscriptions and rock art on pharaonic caravan routes of the Egyptian Western Desert. The inscriptions range in date from predynastic to Christian times. Inscriptions of particular interest in this first volume include those from Gebel Tjauti: a Naqada IID/IIIA tableau revealing important new information concerning the unification of Upper Egypt and the founding of Dynasty 0; a road construction inscription of the Coptite nomarch Tjauti providing evidence for the beginnings of the northern expansion of the Theban realm during the middle Eleventh Dynasty; the depiction of a Nubian ranger; and Coptic cryptography; and from the Wadi el-Hol: epigraphic evidence for the use of the Farshut Road for transport of supplies to the temple of Amun during the New Kingdom; a new Middle Egyptian literary inscription; a rock-cut letter that contributes to our understanding of the history of the textual variants of the Story of Sinuhe; and an inscription recounting desert celebrations in honour of the goddess Hathor. The inscriptions are published as photographs and facsimile drawings, with hieroglyphic transcriptions, translations, commentaries, and glossary.