Customer Reviews

Murder Of Tutankhamen

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I highly recommend this book if you enjoy reading historical interpretations of limited facts with an open mind. Bob Brier is one of my favorite authors, because his obvious love of Egypt comes through in all the books that he writes. In this instance, he explores the known facts regarding King Tutankamun's death and comes to the conclusion that it was his grandfather, Aye, who arranged for the King's death so that Aye could assume the throne. Aye apparently killed off the widow, Annkesenamun, to boot after he married her to legitamize the claim. Do I think this is what happened? No, but I enjoyed the approach and the summary of information currently available on the subject. The book is enjoyable, easy to follow, and I felt that the new viewpoint was worth to consider.

Granted the evidence presented by this book is by no means conclusive, I've got to say that if more history books were written with this much verve, fewer kids would graduate school convinced that "history is boring." Brier loves what he does, and he's very well-read in it, and it shows. You get a real feel for the political intrigue of the time right after the heresies of Amarna, and he presents the information in such a way that you never forget that there are actually human personalities associated with these events. The book does a great job getting across the flavor of life in that time, and certainly it does convince me at least that something fishy was going on at the end of Tut's reign.

However, that said, I didn't find any of the medical/forensic evidence presented even slightly convincing (and the opening chapter with its dramatic film noir reenactment of the "murder" was a bit much). Tutankhamen's death itself at a young age isn't even suspicious given that there is a good chance he inherited Marfan Syndrome from his father, a disability which has an excellent track record of killing young. And given that the skull and body were grossly damaged by the funerary practices of the time, I don't feel that any solid conclusions can be drawn from the state of either. The political evidence that something fishy was happening is a lot more compelling than the physical evidence -- and Brier knows his Egyptian politics.

Brier clearly knows Egypt well, and loves it, and that intellect and enthusiasm shines through every word, making this book a more than worthwhile read as long as you have your critical filters in place. I look forward to more work from Brier. Even if you don't agree with his conclusions, you've got to admit -- if more historians were this engaging and presented history with this much texture and life, history'd be a whole lot more fun in school, wouldn't it?

For a mystery lover, this book is great fun and fascinating reading. Brier has presented a convincing and interesting case for Tut's murder by his vizier. Of course, like many historical mysteries, we can only speculate on the evidence, but what fun to do so.

I read it in hopes for an accurate, and unbiased yet entertaining narrative of the aftermath of the Amarna period and the political intrigue it entailed. I was sorely dissappointed. Much that is only theory or speculation is treated as hard fact in this book. Briar insists that Ankhesenamen wrote the letters to the Hittite king, and that the desperation in these letters is hard proof of the murder of Tuthankamun. That she was the author of these letters is mere specuation. In fact, many prominent Egyptologists firmly beleive that it was either Nefertiti or Merytaten who wrote these pleas. Nowhere are these alternative theories even mentioned...or refuted in this text. Citations are rarely present for many things that Briar presents as firm fact, and when they are present, facts are twisted so that they support Briar's theory. When this text is not bombarding the reader with skewed facts, it is trying to manipulate with sentimentalism. The many melodramatic narratives of Tutankhamn dying pitifully in the arms of a sobbing Ankhesenamen bring the book close to the realms of fiction, and further cloud the fact.
In conclusion, Tut may have been murdered. However, the cloudy, vague, sentimentalized, and sometimes skewed evidence in this book provides absolutely no proof, and worst of all, is guaranteed to be misleaing to the reader.
Instead, I recommend Christine El Mahdy's Tutankhamun. She seems to do a much better job of arguing alternative theories and addressing evidence, without manipulating the emotions of the reader.

I read this book shortly before seeing the Pharoahs of the Sun exhibit that toured the country last year, featuring the artwork that appeared around the reign of Akhenaten and Tutankhamen.

The background in Brier's book allowed me to fully understand the importance of the artwork, and even have an interesting conversation with one of the curators about the debate over Tut's parentage. (Brier says Tut was Akhenaten's son by a secondary wife and the curator agreed.)

I found almost nothing left out of this book and the scholarship was impressive. Whether it was murder that killed Tut will probably never be known, but Brier presents a good case.

I LOVE HIS SENSITIVITY WHEN EXAMINATING THE FOETUSES THAT AS A SCIENTIST IT WAS SIGNIFICANT, BUT ON A HUMAN LEVEL IT WAS AS NEAR TO TUTANKHAMUN AND ANKHESENAMUN AS HE COULD EVER BE..... A FASCINSATING READ.........

The book is well written and full of very valuable information about Ancient Egypt, which makes it worth reading. Unfortunately, however, the author tries so hard to make a 14th century BC monarch digestible to modern American readers, that he does stupid things like comparing Akhenaton's Amarna project to Woodstock in the 60s, or Akhenaton himself to a hippie guy, or turning Tutankhamen's death into a whodunit. There may have been no murder at all, the young pharaoh probably just fell from his car and hit his head; but even if he was really murdered by his vizier Aye, what is so bombastic about it? There's certainly nothing new about this version. Even in "The Egyptian", that old and unsurpassed novel by Mika Waltari, that's precisely what happens. There isn't even another plausible suspect beside Aye, who succeeded Tutankhamen as king of Egypt.

There is almost no doubt at all that Tutankhamen was murdered, and certainly the aged "Divine Father" Ay would seem to have had the most to gain from the young king's demise--but is it really necessary to write an ugly "true-crime" sort of book on the tragic end of the Amarna Period? Nothing new is to be found here, and whatever is of any value is better presented in the (at least) equally readable but infinitely more scholarly and sober works of Aldred, Desroches-Noblecourt, and Reeves. Mistransliteration of proper names (most notoriously, "Smenkhare," an error that sets this reviewer's teeth on edge!)is always a warning flag in Egyptology that the work in question is not to be taken seriously, and this book is a classic of that kind.

The Murder of Tutankhamen was quite informative and obvious that the author did a tremendous amount of research for the book. However, the final analysis is still nothing more than conjecture on the part of the author regarding the possibility of murder. And the hypothesis that Tut could have lingered for several months after the injury before succumbing to death seems to be a real stretch.

The author cast far and abroad for any clues possible to argue the case, but too many issues remain conflicatory for me to bring back a guilty verdict based on this book. Its a good read, but leaves the reader with a sense of doubt and mistrust of the presentation.

This book may, at first, be thought of as strictly history... and it is. But it is put together so well that it feels more like a novel. It is extremely informative and definitly a must read if your interested in ancient egyptian culture/history.