From Publishers Weekly
Oftentimes, the best scholarship uses the investigation of one thing (such as a historical episode or a scientific anomaly) to speak to wider human and cultural truths. Fletcher’s study of the life of the legendary queen Nefertiti is scholarship in just this sense. A learned and intensely personal book, it spans Fletcher’s near-lifelong involvement with the study of Egyptian culture, from her first trip to Egypt as a teenager in 1981 to her most recent excavation in February 2003. Along the way, she provides the reader with a concise introduction to ancient Egyptian history as well as a rough guide to the shifting ideological landscape of professional Egyptology over the last 200 years. Colored by patriarchal assumptions and the personal ambitions of the men who first excavated the desert, Egyptology tends to focus on the most powerful men of ancient Egypt: kings ruling their country (and families) with unquestioned authority. This book is in part an attempt to correct such biases and challenge reigning assumptions about gender roles in ancient Egypt. Fletcher specializes in the study of "everyday" objects like hair, jewelry and clothing that are often passed over or discarded by Egyptologists. The sections of the book devoted to them offer compelling revelations about the identities of anonymous royal figures and the complex relations among and within dynasties. Ultimately, whether or not readers agree with the hypothesis Fletcher draws from her thrilling examination of the so-called Younger Woman (who she believes is Nefertiti) interred in tomb KV.35 in the Valley of Kings is irrelevant; this book is an inspiring record of a life devoted to the highest scholarship. 24 pages of color photos. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Publishers Weekly
"A learned and intensely personal book... compelling revelations... a thrilling examination."
Daily Mail (London)
"Fascinating... Fletcher picked up on the tiniest of clues to track down what she believes could be the missing queen."
Library Journal
The narrative conveys Fletcher’s enthusiasm for her work and is supplemented with an excellent bibliography. Highly recommended.
Daily Mail (London)
"Fascinating...Fletcher picked up on the tiniest of clues to track down what she believes could be the missing queen."
Library Journal
"The narrative conveys Fletcher’s enthusiasm for her work and is supplemented with an excellent bibliography. Highly recommended."
Book Description
Her power was rivaled only by her beauty. Her face has become one of the most recognizable images in the world. She was an independent woman and thinker centuries before her time. But who was Egypt's Queen Nefertiti?
After years of intense research, Dr. Joann Fletcher has answered the questions countless researchers before her could not. While studying Egyptian royal wigs, she read a brief mention of an unidentified and mummified body, discovered long ago and believed to belong to an Egyptian of little importance. This body happened to have a wig, which Dr. Fletcher knew was a clear sign of power. After examining the hairpiece and the woman to which it belonged, to the astonishment of her colleagues she identified this body as the missing remains of Queen Nefertiti.
The search for Nefertiti had ended. She had been found. But the questions were just beginning.
Nefertiti first rose to prominence in Egyptology in 1912, when a three-thousand-year-old bust of the queen was unearthed and quickly became a recognizable artifact around the world. But pieces of Nefertiti's life remained missing. The world had seen what she looked like, but few knew about her place in history.
Virtually nothing is recorded about Nefertiti's early years. What is known about her life starts with her rise to power, her breaking through the sex barrier to rule as a virtual co-Pharaoh alongside her husband, Akhenaten. Upon his death she took full control of his kingdom. The Egyptian people loved her and celebrated her beauty in art, but the priests did not feel the same way. They believed Nefertiti's power over her husband was so great that she would instill her monotheistic beliefs upon him, rendering their own power obsolete. Egyptologists concur that it was these priests who, upon Nefertiti's death, had her name erased from public record and any likeness of her defaced. This ultimately led to her being left out of history for three thousand years.
In The Search for Nefertiti Dr. Fletcher, an esteemed Egyptologist, traces not only her thirteen-year search for this woman, whose beauty was as great as her power, but also brings to the forefront the way Egypt's royal dead have been treated over time by people as varied as Agatha Christie and Adolf Hitler. She also explores how modern technology and forensics are quickly changing the field of archaeology and, in turn, what we know about history.
About the Author
Dr. Joann Fletcher is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and Consultant Egyptologist for Harrogate Museums and Arts. She has undertaken excavation work in Egypt, Yemen, and the UK, and has examined mummies both on site and in collections around the world. Dr. Fletcher writes for The Guardian newspaper and the BBC's History Online Web site, and has made numerous appearances on television and radio. She divides her time between her native Yorkshire, northern France, and Egypt.
Home
