Akhenaten and Nefertiti are two names that are synonymous with Egyptian history. While Tutankhamen and his treasures have eclipsed the couple, the heretical pharaoh and his wife have remained, in large, untouched for years. What we know, or thought we knew, is challenged in part through this book.
John and Colleen Darnell dive into the lives of the couple, from before Akhenaten changed his name and moved his capital city, to their treatment of the major gods and goddesses of Egyptian religion. The fundamental shift that occurred during his reign was massive. For decades, it has been the common assumption that Akhenaten did nothing with his military, letting Egypt crumble as he focused on his religious shift. But evidence presented in this book shows otherwise.

The Darnell's take us through Akhenaten's father briefly, and the lineage of Nefertiti (although still somewhat uncertain), and through their reign, into that of their daughter, and eventually that of Tutankhamen.

This was a really interesting read, and I enjoyed it. While I don't agree with all of the theories put forward in this book, I found that the majority of them do make sense, and deserve some deeper dives into study and research. As someone who has loved Egyptian history for many, many years, this book brought some interesting new information forward, changing the way we think about the reign of Akhenaten, and the eventual demise of the religion of the Aten itself.

A huge thank you to St Martin's Press and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

<i>Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth </i> describes the life of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, how their beliefs altered ancient Egyptian religion and politics, and the impact they had on society at the time.

I really had to take my time reading this, as there is just so much information. I really enjoy the format of storytelling (truly placing you back in time) then transitioning into the explanation and background information for each chapter. However, for roughly the first 30% of the book, I had trouble absorbing the immense amount of information (and <i>names</i>!) that I found it to be slow going. I have always been interested in ancient Egypt and have enjoyed watching several documentaries where John and Colleen Darnell feature, so it was a little discouraging at first.

My favorite parts are the detail on the ancient artifacts and architecture that have been found and studied, but I also enjoyed seeing how Akhenaten and Nefertiti nearly forced a monotheistic religion while proclaiming themselves gods on earth.

This descriptive study into the life of Akhenaten and Nefertiti was incredibly informative- it's amazing that Egyptologists can determine and deduce so much about this period in ancient Egypt, and the authors stick to giving facts while including multiple theories where something isn't proven. Overall, I found this to be a low 4 stars- with the cons being the beginning was slow and over-informative while difficult for me to adjust to. The pros being that I really enjoyed the information provided, the transparency where the Darnell's do not have solid facts, and the enjoyable experience that reading about this topic gave me. I will definitely be picking up a copy.

Egypt’s Golden Couple takes on the story of the Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Queen, Nefertiti. Besides their son, Tutankhamun, they are likely the most well known figures of ancient Egypt. That’s pretty amazing, as their son, and the next Pharaohs after him wrote the “golden couple” out of the official history of kingly succession after their deaths, and they were all but forgotten until the rediscovery of Akhenaten’s capital city Akhetaten (today known as Amarna) in the early 1700s. A tomb purported to contain the mummy of Akhenaten was found in 1907.

The Pharaoh Amunhotep IV took the name Akhenaten after ascending the throne. He is known for his singular devotion to the Egyptian sun god Aten, also known by many other names (‘Re’ being probably the best known). What set Akhenaten apart was that he ignored the other gods and goddesses of Egyptian cosmology publicly and officially, proclaiming Aten the only god worthy of worship.

The capital city he founded was placed where he claimed Aten told him to put it, and had temples only to Aten. Furthermore, Akhenaten positioned himself as the living embodiment of Aten, with his wife Nefertiti as the female embodiment of the god. In essence, he elevated his family to the status of gods.

The book makes the case that this was the outgrowth of a growing worship of the sun god, and an association of the sun god with the Pharaoh. But it’s not known how well followed or how well received Akhenaten’s singular sun god worship was outside of his capital city. We do know that after his death, having been Pharaoh for 17 years, his religious direction fell out of favor and he and his family had their tombs purposely defaced and their bodies moved from their original tombs and into hidden locations.

All of that is the background information the book draws on.

The authors state, in a YouTube video promoting the book, that they want to show how we know what we know about Akhenaten and Nefertiti - for what can we actually know about people who lived 3000 years ago? A number of theories have been posited about the golden couple, and the authors feel that many of them lack a real basis in the evidence available to us. So, this is their attempt to write a “biography” of the golden couple based on only the facts that can be established by the extant information from archeological digs and recovered writings and artifacts.

The result is dry and a bit of a jumble, but I will say that it improves as you move through it.

The book is divided into five sections, and the first three rely more heavily on “reconstructions” of events from the lives of the couple, their family and their predecessors to the throne. Interspersed between these reconstructions are chapters that try to convey more context around the reconstructed scenes.

Because they are sticking to only what can actually be known, these reconstructions are set in known places, depict known buildings and architecture, and are based on known writings. There are not enough knowns to write about the entire lives of the couple, and that explains the jumble, as the book jumps from one scene to another.

While that could be forgiven, the scenes themselves are simple stage pieces, and the players on the stage are wooden and lacking in personality. That’s because we have no idea what their personalities actually were - there are no records or known facts to convey how the golden couple really felt or acted. The authors, Egyptologists by profession, try not to stray too far into historical fiction. That decision robs these scenes of any meaningful depth, making for a hard slog for the reader. Which I’m sure is quite the opposite of what the authors intended.

In the last two sections of the book these “day in the life” scenes become further and further apart, and the archaeology and interpretation of ancient writings and artifacts takes center stage. Here the authors seem much more in their element and the writing improves as a result. While I slogged through the start of the book, and had to put it down for a while to take a break from it, I sped through the last two sections, and enjoyed them much more.

If you are interested in picking this book up, I’d recommend the physical book or ebook over the audiobook version. The illustrations in those versions help to get you through the slog, and so far as I can tell there is no available online set of illustrations to accompany the audiobook.

RATING: I’d give the first part Two Stars and the second part is close to a Four, so an overall rating of Three Stars ⭐⭐⭐

NOTE: I received an advanced copy of this book from St Martin’s Press and NetGalley, and am voluntarily providing this review. The book went on sale November 1, 2022.

Akhenaten is a controversial figure in Egyptian history. He outlawed the worship of all Gods in Egypt except the Sun God. Some see him as the person who ruined Egypt. It was left to his son Tutankhamun to put the kingdom back together and back to a place of prosperity. This book shows the winding path that is Egyptian history and how new discoveries in archeology change the way we look at all of the pieces that we see.

I read the first 50 pages of this book and quite honestly couldn't get into it. The writing was choppy to me, and the storyline wasn't very smooth. Gorgeous cover, I enjoyed the pictures in the book, love the idea of learning more about this "golden couple."

Egypt's Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth
by John Coleman Darnell Colleen Manassa Darnell

I have always been interested in this time period of Egyptian history and have read plenty of articles and books about this duo but this book was by far the easiest to understand and enjoy. Since this November celebrates the 100 year anniversary of finding King Tut's tomb and this book will be published. I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this informative and amazing book!

The book begins with their parents and then later how our young couple probably met or matched. How extremely beautiful Nefertiti was and a good description of Akhenaten too, not so beautiful. For many of the ceremonies, instead of just telling the reader what would happen, the authors made it more fictional. Describing it as if the couple was getting united/married, or a Holy ceremony, and etc. It made the scenes more realistic and helped it stick in my mind.

There was a lot of accomplishments back then. Fascinating life style. Intriguing religious beliefs. Even everyday life was very interesting. Lots of details and all richly satisfying!
I lingered reading this book. I really didn't want it to end. I usually zip through a book but I want to savor living in the Egyptian past for just a bit longer.

Two of ancient leaders come to life in this story of a golden couple of the golden age of Egyptian history. It is a good story but was difficult for me as the reader to keep up with the characters and the setting of their life and times. Their lives were interesting and while we know some of their history and DNA clues provide other information it is difficult to tell how they actually lived. Highly recommend this book for those who have some knowledge of the ancients to accompany what the book provides. Thanks to #netgalley#Egypt'sGoldenCouple for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Ancient Egypt’s Experiment with Monotheism

The pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty have always fascinated me. Akhenaten and Nefertiti are particularly interesting. The reasons for Akhenaten’s withdrawal from the polytheistic worship of Amun, creation a single god in Aten, and his removal of the capital to a new city in the desert has been explored many times with varying degrees of scholarship. I found this book particularly well done.

The authors are archaeologists. They rely heavily on the evidence from art, tomb inscriptions, and the meager history of Akhenaten’s reign, He and Nefertiti were essentially erased from history by the priests of Amun after his death. The book is very scholarly, but relatively easy to read. Some of the descriptions of how to decipher hieroglyphics are slow going, but contain a lot of information that I had not come across before.

I liked that the book started with his father’s reign. It gave a more comprehensive picture of the Egyptian people and particularly the religious issues. The authors give detailed descriptions of the festivals based in large part on the tomb paintings. Each section starts with a fictionalized description of Egyptian life. At first I was put off by them, but gradually I appreciated that they added to the understanding of that period of Egyptian history.

If you’re interested in the 18th dynasty, I highly recommend this book.

I received this book from Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for this review.

Interesting look at King Tut's parents, the way they lived, life around them, and the consequences of their decisions. I would have liked illustrations of some of the things described because I'm a visual person, but overall, a satisfying read if a bit dry.

The history and art of Egypt has long been one of my favorite areas of study. With the anniversary of the discovery of King Tut this was the perfect nonfiction read. Written in a way that should appeal to both those who have a background in the field as well as those who are looking for a starting point. I enjoyed it even without the maps and photos. Between having studied art history and the internet, I had no trouble filling in the visuals.
History has done a serious job of erasing Akhenaten and this well written volume sets out to fill in as much information as possible. From the reign of his parents Amunhotep III and Tiye through his reign with Nefertiti, the Amarna period comes alive. The research is extensive and the presentation is in no way dry and tedious.
My thanks to the publisher St. Martin's Press and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

To anyone who watches modern politics, the prologue of this book is very familiar. Modern leaders’ marriages are constantly either upheld as models of solid political and personal commitment or rumoured to be extremely dysfunctional. Either on the verge of falling apart or secretly already separated. Their every public glance or gesture is picked apart by bloggers, newspaper opinion pieces and the Twitterverse.

So when you read that Akhenaten is either the perfect father or an incestuous pedophile, either a prophet of monotheism or a totalitarian ruler who cast off all checks to his power, the public parallels are obvious: Akhenaten and his Chief Wife Nefertiti were Egypt's celebrity power couple.

Seemingly everyone from Freud to modern philosophers has had a crack at the royal relationship and its impact on the society, economics, and development of Egypt. What is known for sure is that they were so hated by the powers that came after - revivals of the priestly cults they had deposed - that their new Royal city was flattened, and his name defaced on monuments across Egypt.

Did they succeed in changing Egypt forever? Does it matter? The fact that we're still talking about them 3500 years later means their detractors ultimately failed to, in current parlance, cancel them.

The book is eminently readable for anyone interested in armchair archaeology, making the topic accessible without bogging down in much scholarly detail.

I don't envy any authors trying to give a biography of Akhenaten and Nefertiti: so little is known (they were systematically erased from history shortly after their deaths) and the records are never clear even when intact. What the authors have done is use actual factual historical information to give a personal, insightful, and relatable view of the couple and their life/the lives around them.

The book is fairly chronological and really, most biographies of the 18th dynasty spend most of the first chapters saying, "we really don't know but guess..." The authors here instead just stick to what is known - be it inscriptions in tombs, fragments of pottery dating, stele heralds, or even correspondence found from other countries to the rulers.

I am not really one who likes dramatizations - of which each chapter has a short one in the beginning. But I also have to appreciate and respect that the authors drew each dramatization from an actual piece of historical evidence - whether it was officials going in and chiseling out all mentions and faces of the royal couple after their deaths (which is why we know so little about them) or scribes talking to each other about the hymm of Aten (which appears on a tomb wall).

The authors really want to humanize the couple and ancient Egyptians; I feel they did a very good job at both without speculating too much. There is also a LOT of great information here - about the religion, how art is so often misinterpreted, and about the vagaries of the Egyptian language itself. I was surprised at how much insight I gleaned about Egyptian life and why there is still so much unknown and even confusion about what we do have.

They do have their own guesses/suppositions about things that some who have studied the couple may not necessarily agree with - in this way, they do interject their own theories often. It's something to keep in mind when reading.

In all, the dramatizations are short but they don't feel too 'made up' and so they didn't bother me as much as they could have. I learned a lot and the writing was easy to follow and very informative. It's definitely a less scholarly side of Egypt and a perspective that humanizes but also educates. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

I took this and another biography of a historical person for reading on a cross-country journey, which is perfect for this sort of leisurely reading.

Though I am ignorant of Egyptian history, even I am familiar with Nefertiti, copies of whose graceful head bust were popular when I was a kid, and also with Akhenaten, whose strange depictions sometimes put him out there as a slouching dweeb--even as a woman--as well as the usual extravagantly male carvings we usually see.

I found myself impressed by the breadth of knowledge on display here, as the Darnells slowly develop their theory about why Akhenaten did what he did--resulting in his being erased from history, along with his gorgeous wife and family, for nearly three thousand years.

The key is a total revamping of Egypt's religious expression, which appears after the king's death to have disturbed his successors enough for that erasure: Akhenaten seems to have transformed the pantheon of gods into worship of a single sun god, embodied in the king himself.

The proof is what makes the story come alive, rather than the little bits of fiction that precede each chapter. I applaud the authors' attempt to try to breathe life into these remote figures, but they succeed only in proving that scholars are not necessarily novelists--compare these awkward bits to the children's historical novel Mara Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvid McGraw, who was not an Egyptologist, but whose tale utterly absorbed me when I was in grade school.

These bits of scene offered here are less convincing than the precise descriptions of art, tombs, hieroglyphics, and other evidence from the period. But those bits are the real meat of the book, full of rich imagery, and fascinating tidbits like how rock was quarried and brought to the enormous monuments to the eternity of the gods, how human figures in that easily recognizable style were measured, etc. Equally fascinating are the authors' explications for why kings and queens were sometimes depicted with gender transformation--everything was symbolism.

What emerges is a sense of a long-lived culture in which the sacred lived and breathed through every aspect of everyday life. So of course a magnificent effort must be made to express that sense of awe, gratitude, caution, and reverence in art.

I really enjoyed the sheer nerddom here, and the picture it builds.

What is known of Akhenaten, the pharaoh who promoted Re as the primary god of Egypt, and his wife, Nefertiti, known for the beautiful bust found in Amarna? Where is the knowledge found and what does it mean? Those are the questions the Darnells set out to answer in this book. It is probably not a book for everyone as I suspect some readers will find it dry and slow going. The authors are Egyptologists and they stick to the evidence which comes from inscriptions, letters, and the odd note or label. They explain how the meanings of hieroglyphics are teased out and how interpretations can be quite different among scholars. (And, yes, naturally the book is in support of their interpretations.) The authors describe the evolution of Akhenaten's rule and it's foundation on past beliefs The public relations aspect of monumental inscriptions and sculpture also needs to be taken into account. This is very interesting and well documented. Each chapter begins with a scenario imagined, but based on evidence, involving the main characters. This added nothing from my point of view. The meat of the book is the reason to read it.

One hundred years ago the tomb of Tutankhamen was discovered. The history and culture of Egypt and its’ pyramids has always drawn my attention and I was excited to read Egypt’s Golden Couple. Each chapter opens with a vignette depicting the life of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, Tutankhamen’s parents.. Based on ancient texts, artifacts, monuments and statuary, these scenes serve as an opening to the information that follows. John and Colleen Darnell present a well-researched and presented history set in the Eighteenth Dynasty. From Amunhotep III, Akhenaten inherited an extensive empire and ruled it as a god with Nefertiti by his side. This is a fascinating look at their achievements and the changes that they made in the religious beliefs of their time and is highly recommended. I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing this book for my review.

Egypt's Golden Couple goes more into the life of Akhenanten and Nefertiti and when they were Gods on Earth.

This book gives more history on the before and after of both the Pharaoh and the Queen. For this to be about history it wasn't one of those boring history books as it kept the audience engaged and wanting to know more about everything that was going on.

Anything that has to do with ancient Egypt I am reading it so I was glad to get a fun Egyptian read to learn more.

I received a complimentary ARC copy of Egypt’s Golden Couple; When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth by John and Colleen Darnell from Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press to read and give an honest review.

"…Definitely a labor of love, the authors’ passion for the subject evident in every sentence…"

I’ve always been interested in Egyptology and always strive to learn more. Authors John and Colleen Darnell well established in the field, have crafted this well written and extensively researched book about Akhenaten and Nefertiti who reigned in Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty from 1352-1336 BCE .

Every chapter contains vignettes recreating dramatic scenes gleaned from artifacts from the time of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, offering the Darnell’s interpretations of translations in the form of fiction-like vignettes on Akhenaten’s unique place in Ancient Egyptian history. The book seems somewhat chronological, starting with the reign of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten’s father, and ends with the death of his son Tutankhamun.

All encompassing, the Darnell’s discus various aspects of Egyptian life including culture, death, rituals, religion, art and family. Akhenaten boldly changed the polytheistic Egyptian religion to a monotheistic one that making an indelible mark in Egyptian society.

I enjoyed this book and will definitely be rereading it as it was such an intensive dive into Akhenaten and Nefertiti ‘s reign. Definitely a labor of love, the authors’ passion for the subject evident in every sentence. My main issue with Egypt’s Golden Couple was that I often found the fiction like narrative a bit distracting from the archaeological evidence.

While I love history, I don't consider myself particularly knowledgeable about ancient Egypt. So I was looking forward to learning a little more in Egypt's Golden Couple about Akhenaten and Nefertiti- probably best known (if known at all) as the parents of King Tutankhamun. I knew vaguely that Akhenaten had tried to change Egypt's religion into a more monotheistic focus towards the sun god Aten, but that was all I knew beforehand.

I definitely appreciated that, as Egyptologists themselves, John and Colleen Darnell stuck to physical and written evidence in their interpretation of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. What does the archaeology tell us about their reign? What do writings show about how that might have changed? And, interestingly, what could be put in the context of other pharaohs like Hatshepsut to give us a feel for what would be considered 'normal' versus 'unique'? With rulers as controversial as Akhenaten and Nefertiti, this seemed like a good way to get as much of a feel for them and their world as we are likely to get over 3,000 years later.

The book is written with three styles to it, which took some getting used to. Each chapter starts with a fictionalized imagining of a scene, then moves on to a nonfiction research explanation, archaeological interpretation, or most often a hieroglyph interpretation of another aspect of their rule. I was not a fan of the fictional scenes. I guess the idea was to make things more "real" or "relatable" for the reader, but they really put me off. Much of the rest of the writing was dense, more written for scholars than a layperson like me. The detailed explanations of how the authors interpreted the hieroglyphs as they did was very interesting and certainly made me feel like they knew what they were doing, but went way too much "into the weeds" for my understanding. It was like a lot of the time the book couldn't decide if it was written for scholars and fellow Egyptologists, or for the lay reader to introduce them to Egyptology in general and Akhenaten and Nefertiti in particular, and so tried to do both. The result was often repetitive, frequently interesting, but just as often a dense read.

A book I'd recommend more for people already well versed in Egyptology than the general reader

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Fascinating and best of all, approachably well written. This reads as much like a novel as it does a terrifically researched look at two of the icons (for want of a better word) of their age. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A must read for fans of Egyptology.

This is an extensive presentation of research into the parents of King Tutankhamen, Nefertiti and Akhenaten. Queen Nefertiti is considered to be a beautiful , strong figure and her husband was thought to be a controversial rebel. There is a lot of information packed into this book, which I found simultaneously interesting and a bit overwhelming,