Bob Brier, author on ancient Egypt and expert on mummies and paleopathology, presents here a well-written popular book on the time of Tutankhamen. He presents a tale of power politics on the Nile - 'a 3000-year old murder mystery.' He sketches in the necessary background, and has a way of making all the details hang together. He is as thoroughly at home with the science as he is with the history: his presentation gives an insight into the new discoveries that are to be made using modern techniques in Egyptology.
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The detailed background starts with Egypt at the time of the astonishing and revolutionary monotheistic King Ahkenaten of Royal Armana, and ends with the rise of General Horemheb, a mere commoner, to the throne. His somewhat controversial case for the prosecution (which I will not reveal) is fairly convincing, but it would stand no chance after this length of time in a court of law, be it ancient or modern. The value lies in the attempt to build a case and the general excellence of the reconstruction.
He is of the modern camp in Egyptology in that he believes that literacy and numeracy were fairly widespread at the time he is concerned with, which they clearly were, although he does not attempt to estimate the literacy rate in this book. He does observe that the three R's were urged on young people in general (some things never change), as a sure way of progressing and getting a good white-collar job. And in this case, this literally meant a clean white-robed and collared job as a scribe, as opposed to a dirty-collared job as a stonecutter or labourer.
I feel rather mean in cavilling at all at this book, however, I will. The most shocking statement in the book is a throwaway three-liner on p.26. Comparing the rote performance of religious rites by the Egyptian priesthood to the Israelites he says: 'In the Old Testament there is little said about what the followers of Yahweh must believe. One had to follow the law, but none of the Ten Commandments says that you must believe. It was not until Christianity that there was an emphasis on what was "in your heart"'. This is like saying that you don't have to believe in addition and subtraction to do arithmetic, and that the proof is that the math texts do not explicitly state that you must 'believe'. Of course not - this is an assumption on which all else rests. You don't go digging up the roots of a healthy plant to check they are there: if it grows, they have to be there. The OT is jammed with faith, man to God-ward. The first easy proof of this from the bible is in the Flood story, Genesis 6:5-8. 'God saw [man's] wickedness...the thoughts of his heart only evil continually. The LORD said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth." But Noah found grace in the sight of the LORD.' And he had to have faith in God's word; else he would not have made a laughing stock of himself building that silly boat. Later on, Abraham found favour with God by faith in his revealed word - and that this was so is picked up in the New Testament where he is cited as one of the OT heroes of faith. And we are nowhere near the Ten Commandments yet - but do read it for yourself to check this out.
The review of this Book prepared by Michael JR Jose
