Amarna... the Missing Evidence [Paperback]

This book says "missing evidence", and evidence certainly is missing. The sources/bibliography list is rather short, and some of the sources rather old. Especially, Ms Moseley omits any reference to the 2005 CT/MRI scan of King Tut (which was in "National Geographic"), or the discovery of KV63.

Then there's the obvious typos. The language is "dumbed down". (A previous review said Sue Moseley is a school teacher. At what level does she teach?) At least the slick pages made it easier for me to write my comments. The nitpicking/hairsplitting over the meaning of cartouches seems strident. How well does the author know the Egyptian language & writing?

I would like to see a book by someone who has dispassionately gone over all the fragmented information about Akhenaten/Nefertiti/Amarna and arrived at conclusions. This book isn't that.

Due to a sudden illness I was off work for a few months, and decided that it was the perfect time for a bit of private study. The 18th dynasty had always fascinated me, Akhenaton, Nefertiti and the mysterious Smenkhkare had piqued my interest since I first visited the Cairo Museum as a kid almost 20 years ago.

The author of this book very cleverly wrote reviews of other books covering Ancient Egypt and the Amarna period and plugged her own book in each review (which is a great marketing idea and I applaud her for it)- but Sue Moseley did not review the excellent "Akhenaton King of Egypt" by Cyril Aldred, I wonder why? Maybe it is because every so called "new" theory put forward by Sue Moseley is included in the book by Aldred which was published in 1988. Amarna The Missing Evidence was published at the very beginning of 2009 and as you read it, it begins to feel more and more rushed, and becomes increasingly hysterical.

The end of each chapter gives the reader in bullet point from "the established theory" and then "the Sue Moseley Theory". Let's just take the chapter on the death of Tutankhamen, whereby she gives the "established theory" being that Tut was murdered - whereas anyone who watches documentaries on TV will be well aware that it was the knee infection that did him in. Murder has not been the "established theory" since the 20th century. The MRI imaging of Tutankhamen' body carried out several years ago now has been very well documented on an international level is not mentioned in this "new" book.

Perhaps the part of the title "the missing evidence" is more to do with what the author leaves out. Anything that does not fit her perspective is usually "rubbished" and barely examined, "facts" that would support alternative theories are conveniently left out, and she is extremely disrespectful of authors, researchers, historians and "real" Egyptologists who have done actual research, work and have provided good (and bad) theories regarding what happened in Akhethaten 3500 years ago. It is this disrespectful attitude that compelled me to write my thoughts on this poorly written book - especially as the author and her friends are responsible for the "good" reviews here on Amazon.

I take notice of what other Amazon customers have to say when shopping for books, DVD's and even electrical equipment, it's very important and can often sway my decision of what to buy, but I always check and see what else the reviewers have" reviewed"- that little "see all my reviews button", is really useful. And at the time of writing this, the authors of the three glowing reviews for this book have only written one review each for Amazon - in each instance it being Amarna The Missing Evidence. And that's usually a bad sign as it means the "reviewer" either knows or is the author.

Within the whole book there is only one piece of "evidence" that I have not seen or read about elsewhere, and this is to do with the possible misreading of hieroglyphs that are believed to reference Smenkhkare in one of the Amarna tombs. But the simple fact that the author completely ignores other evidence of the existence of Smenkhkare makes me not want to believe her. Unfortunately even if before reading this book I had held the same opinion as Sue Moseley on "theories" that in this book she claims to be new and her own, I now find myself wanting to take the opposite opinion because her arguments are presented so badly.

It's a very quick read, not exactly a page turner but has large print that is double spaced and at 228 pages in length it wastes trees as it could easily have been less than a third of the size.

The very first "bad thing" that I noticed very early on were the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors - these do get worse as you get deeper into the book. In the opening pages Sue thanks her "proof reader", who is fortunately named - authors to be, never employ Cath Potten as a proof reader - especially if you're doing a hurried cut and paste job!

The portions within her book that Sue Moseley "borrowed" from "The Amarna Letters" edited and TRANSLATED by William L. Moran include a few hanging characters' such as [ and ]. These are odd bits that she left behind when she edited out other possible translations or meanings for words that change the possible translation of the original text. In Moran's book these possible other meanings are enclosed within these [ ]. Sue chose the word and or meanings that suited her argument best and ignored the alternatives, the book describes this as an "holistic approach" to the subject.

Fortunately Cath Potten didn't pay very good attention to the text, or perhaps had her spell checker switched off, or perhaps she was sensible and just didn't read the manuscript - another great Amarna mystery, but it clearly demonstrates Sue Moseley's inability to successfully cut, paste and borrow from others. Sue Moseley is also a school teacher.

For someone who has "studied" the Amarna "evidence" Sue Moseley has clearly never been to Berlin. She has not taken time to examine the incredible Egyptian collection that is housed there. She has not seen for herself the literally astonishing specimens that were excavated from the site of Akhethaten, she has looked at photographs that is certain, but those pictures clearly do not show the actual size of some of the objects that she mentions and uses as "evidence". Of course if the reader knew the actual scale of some of the statues and carvings that she uses as evidence then her arguments regarding Nefertiti don't really stand up.

What is just sloppy research or what is deliberately left out - you decide!

The chapter looking at the primary hieroglyphic evidence about "Smenkhare" I thought was very good and I liked her reconsideration of the overall dating timeline.

As others have commented though, this is not so much an academic book as a written version of a lecture: her tone is a little hectoring and that does start to wear after a time. She talks about the "disgrace" of Nefertiti as the established version of amarna history when that has been seen as wrong for years - I've got a 2001 book by Nicolas Reeves that talks of that theory as having been discredited for some time. I was also highly surprised she didn't include the last Egyptian scan of Tutankhamun as it was a few years ago and established that he was likely to have died from the results of a serious leg injury. I don't think it's going to spoil the surprise for any amarna enthousiast to mention that she discusses Nefertiti as pharoah in her own right - I can't think how many times I'd read that theory before.

The consideration of the KV55 mummy was interesting but I thought the photo used of a canopic jar was a little misleading as most of the close-ups I've seen of them are distinctly female and most writers seem to think they belonged to Kiya. Apparently a Russian egyptologist has identified part of the titulary on the rishi coffin as indicating that it originally belonged to Kiya but this wasn't mentioned. It does raise questions as the mummy now in it seems to universally be thought NOT to be Kiya but this wasn't touched on. Interesting outstanding question there.

I'm pleased I got it but it's not quite as original or radical as it thinks it is.