tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post5500249639618832173..comments2023-11-29T07:39:34.401+00:00Comments on Carla Nayland Historical Fiction: Kingdom of the Ark, by Lorraine Evans. Book reviewCarlahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-2696867096375613242007-09-07T09:47:00.000+01:002007-09-07T09:47:00.000+01:00Michelle Moran's recent novel Nefertiti uses the p...Michelle Moran's recent novel <I>Nefertiti</I> uses the premise that Ay was Nefertiti's father (more details in my <A HREF="http://carlanayland.blogspot.com/2007/07/nefertiti-by-michelle-moran-book-review.html" REL="nofollow">earlier review</A> if you're interested). <BR/><BR/>Was the wife of Horemheb that you're thinking of called Mutnodjmet? Michelle Moran's novel sets Mutnodjmet (Horemheb's wife) as Nefertiti's sister, so Akhenaten's sister-in-law, although I gather the relationship isn't certain. Or did Horemheb marry another wife who's known to be a daughter of Akhenaten? It's all terribly confusing, and fertile ground for the imagination - no wonder it's a popular period!<BR/><BR/>Have other non-Egyptian remains been discovered near the Kadesh battle site? If they have, that would show that bodies survive in the local conditions and supports (though doesn't prove) the idea that the Egyptian dead were taken away. On the other hand, if no remains have been found, that might suggest either that bodies don't survive or that we're looking in the wrong place.....Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-10220493747034688372007-09-06T20:17:00.000+01:002007-09-06T20:17:00.000+01:00First, I made an error: Ramesses I was Horemheb's ...First, I made an error: Ramesses I was Horemheb's heir, not Seti. I get my Ramessides confused ;)<BR/><BR/>Unfortunately, we don't know what really happened to Tut's wife after the Hittite Prince Affair, save that she likely was forced to marry Ay and was quietly put aside in favor of Ay's first wife (whether that means she was killed or just 'retired' is a topic of discussion, indeed). Conspiracy theorists believe she was against the marriage because Ay was the prime suspect in Tut's supposed murder. Some have even postulated that Ay was Nefertiti's father (she was Akhenaton's wife and Tut's wife's mother), meaning she'd be marrying her grandfather. While that's possible, the vitriol in the letter against 'the commoner' precludes in my mind a family connection. I believe Ay was a courtier who had risen far beyond his station. He ruled for approx. 3 years before Horemheb took full control of the government and set about erasing all vestiges of the Amarna period. In the propaganda, <I>he</I> became the heir of Amenhotep III (Akhenaton's father).<BR/><BR/>You can see why the Amarna period is one of the most popular in all of Egyptian history. Which makes Ms. Evans' book all the more ballsey for assigning such an exodus to Meritaten (I want to say this was the daughter of Akhenaton that Horemheb married, but I'm not certain -- there names are so similar, and this isn't my favored time period so my memory is a bit spotty).<BR/><BR/>The fate of the common casualties at Kadesh is part of the ongoing debate. In Egypt, even the poor were embalmed (albeit a cheap and dirty embalming). The afterlife was open to all Egyptians regardless of class or station; indeed, it was meant to mirror life along the Nile, with workers happy and full of love for their rulers. No record was ever made regarding disposition of the dead after Kadesh, though as far as I know, no one has discovered Egyptian remains near the site of the battle. It might be we'll never know ;)Scott Odenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917296669418463518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-74126682739761982992007-09-06T17:17:00.000+01:002007-09-06T17:17:00.000+01:00Scott - many thanks for that clarification. It's ...Scott - many thanks for that clarification. It's interesting that Tutankhamun's wife should have considered marrying a foreigner preferable to marrying a 'commoner' of her own country - unless she had a specific reason to dislike the guy in question. What did Horemheb do to her? was she executed?<BR/><BR/>Good point re the Battle of Kadesh. I suppose there would have been similar arrangements needed for other military expeditions abroad - presumably <I>some</I> Egyptian soldiers got killed even if they won, and wuld have had to be brought home for burial. Or did common soldiers not count and they only needed to make special arrangements for the top brass (who usually don't get killed)?Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-6971125962650961712007-09-05T19:18:00.000+01:002007-09-05T19:18:00.000+01:00The notion that Egyptian princesses (princessi?) s...The notion that Egyptian princesses (princessi?) should never marry foreigners springs from the fact that to ancient Egyptians members of the royal family were literally gods -- the earthbound avatars of Isis and Horus. Only another god -- another <I>Egyptian</I> god specifically -- could be a royal's equal in marriage. This is also at the core of the brother/sister unions. <BR/><BR/>In the wake of his death, King Tut's wife, who was likely a half-sister, offered herself in marriage to a son of the Hittite king, presumably to avoid being forced into marrying 'a commoner' (most Egyptologists believe it was the vizier, Ay, who ruled twixt Tut and Horemheb). She was gotten rid of real quick, and Horemheb, who was chief of the army, had the Hittite prince killed as he crossed the frontier. Though not of royal blood himself, Horemheb married a daughter of Akhenaton AND proclaimed that Horus had elevated him to godhood. His heir was Seti, who was the father of the Ramesside (19th) dynasty.<BR/><BR/>As for officials dying abroad: I think most would have had a quick and dirty embalming done, been packed in salt or sand, and hastened on their way back to Egypt. I recall reading something about that very problem in the aftermath of the Battle of Kadesh; accomodations had to be made for the Egyptian dead to be transported home. Details, though, have always been hazy.Scott Odenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917296669418463518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-57050370989261281092007-09-05T09:01:00.000+01:002007-09-05T09:01:00.000+01:00Rick - yes, nothing changes, does it? I shall hav...Rick - yes, nothing changes, does it? I shall have to see if I can find a copy Bibby's book - I hadn't come across it before but if both you and Scott recommend it it should be a good read!<BR/><BR/>Scott - I don't know enough about metallurgy either. My concern would be that you could do the trace element analysis on the artefact no problem, but you wouldn't be able to tell whether the trace elements you found came from the tin or the copper or both and in what proportion, which might mean it's of limited use for identifying the source of the components used to make the alloy. If I ever get the time I may try to look it up.<BR/><BR/>Good point about the vital importance of the afterlife in early Egypt. The book doesn't mention that aspect at all, although she does mention that Egyptian princesses were never married to foreigners and that's presumably part of the same issue. Exile was a particular horror of many early societies (e.g. the Welsh concept of 'hiraeth', and Old English poetry such as the Wanderer), and the fear would be redoubled in spades if you believed your soul would be exiled from the afterlife as well.<BR/>Out of interest, if one of the officials happened to die on his infrequent trip to one of the colonies, just by chance, would they have been able to preserve his body on the spot so they could bring him home for proper burial? I suppose you could pickle a body in something simple like brine just for transport?Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-17202462270859288302007-09-05T05:53:00.000+01:002007-09-05T05:53:00.000+01:00Oh, it's a classic, Rick! I hunted down my copy o...Oh, it's a classic, Rick! I hunted down my copy on Alibris after reading a review of it in a fanzine a few years ago. I'm sure some of Bibby's history is outdated, now, but he had a gift for injecting life into dry archaeological records.<BR/><BR/>He's also credited with finding the ancient island empire of Dilmun in the Persian Gulf (on the island of Bahrein, actually).Scott Odenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917296669418463518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-37673617200703799622007-09-05T05:47:00.000+01:002007-09-05T05:47:00.000+01:00You know, I want to say it can but I'm not familia...You know, I want to say it can but I'm not familiar enough with metallurgy to say for certain. It's definitely an interesting read, however.<BR/><BR/>I realized I forgot to mention the book you're reviewing ;) I find it highly unlikely that ancient Egyptians would flee to a point as distant as the British Isles. Simply put, their religion is their life, and their religion is distinctly Nilotic. It makes NO accomodations for foreign burial; the idea of dying in a far-off land and being denied an afterlife was a very real fear to them (it's an almost constant theme in the 'Travels of Wenamun'). This fear even informed their foreign policy -- though the Egyptians of the 18th dynasty had trading posts and colonies in Palestine, most were run by locals and defended by mercenaries, with officials making infrequent trips to check things out. So, I have serious doubts about a princess fleeing to such a remarkably distant shore, thus denying herself and her followers any hope of an afterlife. More likely, she would have fled into Upper Egypt or Nubia.Scott Odenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917296669418463518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-39491074781944222172007-09-05T05:46:00.000+01:002007-09-05T05:46:00.000+01:00Carla - I guess pretty much the same stuff sold in...Carla - I guess pretty much the same stuff sold in 1435 as now. No real surprise; Homer was around 750 BC, and the Iliad and Odyssey between them are more or less a complete guide to schlock: monsters, babes, and lots and lots of hack & hew.<BR/><BR/>Scott - I remember that book! I read it in high school or even junior high ... not long after the time period it covers. I was thinking of it after reading Carla's post - I'd long forgotten author and title, but the 70-year intervals stuck with me.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-6093178343362358112007-09-04T16:15:00.000+01:002007-09-04T16:15:00.000+01:00Scott - that sounds a fascinating and unusual book...Scott - that sounds a fascinating and unusual book! I've heard of the suggested tin trade between Britain and the Mediterranean before, and it makes sense to me - tin isn't widely distributed and it seems logical that the vast deposits in Cornwall would have been discovered and exploited. I don't know if anyone's done a systematic trace-element survey of Mediterranean bronzes to see if they can identify the tin source unequivocally. Trace element analysis can identify the source of gold, but I don't know if it can be applied in the same way to an alloy.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-70396803408984739872007-09-04T15:09:00.000+01:002007-09-04T15:09:00.000+01:00I first came across this idea in Geoffrey Bibby's ...I first came across this idea in Geoffrey Bibby's excellent '4000 Years Ago: A World Panorama of Life in the Second Millenium BC' (Collins, 1962). An archaeologist himself, Bibby explored the notion that quite elaborate trade routes existed between the British Isles (a source of tin) and the Mediterranean -- some via the sea and others overland. The bulk of this trade was done in a round-about way, tribe to tribe or from established entrepots. Though firmly rooted in the science of his time, Bibby's portraits of life among early Germanic sea traders, their rare trips to sunny Crete, are fanciful and interesting. The whole book, which covers the history and social changes of a thousand-year period in seventy-year 'snapshots', is quite excellent.Scott Odenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17917296669418463518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-24821313773972155642007-09-04T13:30:00.000+01:002007-09-04T13:30:00.000+01:00Bernita - agreed, legends can be marvellous fun, b...Bernita - agreed, legends can be marvellous fun, but while it's often possible to come up with a halfway plausible suggestion for how they <I>might</I> have happened, it's rare to prove that they <I>must</I> have happened. I gather that the records at the fag-end of the 18th dynasty are so confused that they can bear many interpretations, e.g. the disagreement over whether Pharoah Smenkhare was a man or Queen Nefertiti under another name.<BR/><BR/>Rick - the Egyptian princess idea goes back to Walter Bower, so if there was a pitch meeting it was held in 1435 :-) That said, the agent credited in the acknowledgements is with a high-powered London agency, so I daresay he was alert to the marketing possibilities! It certainly makes a cute hook to hang a story on, and pushes a lot of buttons - exotic 'descent', Ancient Egypt, Irish celts, a bit of feminism, etc.<BR/><BR/>No, the book doesn't even speculate as to how 'Meritaten' could have become 'Scota'. Which is probably just as well, as 'Scota' looks so obvious a back-formation made up to explain the name of the Scots. The mildly curious aspect is that the attached legend is a refugee princess rather than the more usual heroic male founder-figure (see Nor, Cunedda, etc in original post). Perhaps either Bower had an unusually vivid imagination or he was working from a genuine tradition of sorts. (Which itself could have been made up any time in the intervening 2700 years, with or without a grain of truth).<BR/><BR/>Re the Irish and the Ten Lost Tribes, there is - see <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Lost_Tribes" REL="nofollow">Wikipedia</A> for a start.<BR/><BR/>Gabriele - that's interesting, I could understand someone wanting to place Odysseus on home turf. <BR/><BR/>Alianore - it's well worth reading for the leads into bits of history, but I think you need to keep your critical radar switched on :-) I thought the sections on the Amarna heresy (apparently it went back to Akhenaten's father and grandfather and he was just taking it further, rather than it being his idea de novo) and the various suggestions of trade links were more interesting than the central theory itself.Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-19657941751697880192007-09-02T05:56:00.000+01:002007-09-02T05:56:00.000+01:00To my mind, trade links between Ancient Egypt and ...To my mind, trade links between Ancient Egypt and Britain are interesting enough without having to sex it up with an Egyptian princess. :) Had to laugh at Rick's comment about the Hollywood pitch meeting - that's how I saw it, too!<BR/><BR/>I hadn't heard about the boat in the Humber Estuary, which is a fascinating find in itself. Theorising that it must have been one of Meritaten's ships seems to be stretching the evidence dangerously far. Afraid I find the central theory of the book very implausible (though I would like to read it).Kathryn Warnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00397714441908100576noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-52847613412056265102007-09-01T22:25:00.000+01:002007-09-01T22:25:00.000+01:00There may be something like that, Carla, though th...There may be something like that, Carla, though the author of that particular thesis is German, not Scot.Gabriele Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17205770868139083575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-29583237847900426682007-09-01T00:21:00.000+01:002007-09-01T00:21:00.000+01:00Going just from your review, the book's central th...Going just from your review, the book's central thesis sounds utterly unconvincing - not impossible, or even totally implausible, but with no actual reason to believe it. On the other hand the material sounds interesting, even if it doesn't support that thesis.<BR/><BR/>I more than half wonder if this is a sort of historical fiction for the reality-show age. Or - nearly the same thing - a rather clever attempt to sex up a treatise on trade and contact in the Bronze Age so it sells better. You can almost picture it like a Hollywood pitch meeting: <I>"Hey - I know! We'll throw in an Egyptian princess!"</I><BR/><BR/>A couple of side questions: Does the author have a line of jive for how Meritaten became "Scota?"<BR/><BR/>And how come there's never (that I know of) been a crackpot theory that the Irish are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes?Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-22689397826006762862007-08-31T20:37:00.000+01:002007-08-31T20:37:00.000+01:00Well, the "sea with troubled minds" translation of...Well, the "sea with troubled minds" translation of Bower certainly entranced me, but I am reluctant to give much credence to this sort of speculation ( while I am delighted with the "what if it were true" approach to legends) for there is never sufficient reason for the principal arriving at the designated spot.<BR/> The pharaoh's daughter, if indeed she did flee, would have more likely to seek sanctuary a little closer to home.<BR/>And I'm not sure that the claim that Merataten "disappeared" is established.Bernitahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05264585685253812090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-46151744833112665512007-08-31T18:48:00.000+01:002007-08-31T18:48:00.000+01:00Megumi - indeed, it does seem to be a common assum...Megumi - indeed, it does seem to be a common assumption. I daresay it's true that most people didn't travel far, but that doesn't mean that no-one did or that cultures were isolated from each other. Maybe it reflects our difficulty in imagining travel without the car and plane? By the way, where was the bowl from Sparta found - have you got any more details?<BR/><BR/>Gabriele - I suppose Odysseus could have got a long way in 10 years of sailing :-) Do you suppose there's a desire to imagine famous and/or exotic visitors to one's own country (Odysseus, Egyptian royalty), in the same sort of way as people liked to imagine the adventures of Roland and Arthur taking place in their locality?Carlahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901028520813891575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-37223080728354513772007-08-31T17:52:00.000+01:002007-08-31T17:52:00.000+01:00I agree on the trade connections, but to hinge the...I agree on the trade connections, but to hinge the story of an else little known woman upon a few finds and a Mediaeval chronicls (and we all know how reliable those are, lol) seems to take things a bit far.<BR/><BR/>I've read a book that states Odysseus surrounded Scotland instead of just criscrossing the Mediterranean. Now, he's at least a famous fellow and I found the book interesting (some of the tidal and weather phenomenons in the <I>Odyssee</I> do look rather like the Scottish westcoast), but I still think it's no more than a somewhat unusual idea that would need more support than geographical identifications to be valid.<BR/><BR/>But then, so far archaelogists and historians are not even sure about the routes Odysseus might have taken in the Mediterranean. :)Gabriele Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17205770868139083575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19922276.post-2288542376589565352007-08-30T19:40:00.000+01:002007-08-30T19:40:00.000+01:00I've never heard of that theory (and I have my dou...I've never heard of that theory (and I have my doubts), but I DO agree that we constantly underestimate ancient civilizations, especially Egypt. I just read about a bowel from Sparta found somewhere in the British Isles, proving how mobile Ancient cultures really were!Meghanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03375626649089998707noreply@blogger.com