This new study, drawing on the latest research, tells the story of the
decline and fall of the pharaoh Akhenaten's religious revolution in the
fourteenth century BC. Beginning at the regime's high-point in his Year
12, it traces the subsequent collapse that saw the deaths of many of the
king's loved ones, his attempts to guarantee the revolution through
co-rulers, and the last frenzied assault on the god Amun.
The book then outlines the events of the subsequent five decades that
saw the extinction of the royal line, an attempt to place a foreigner on
Egypt's throne, and the accession of three army officers in turn. Among
its conclusions are that the mother of Tutankhamun was none other than
Nefertiti, and that the queen was joint-pharaoh in turn with both her
husband Akhenaten and her son. As such, she was herself instrumental in
beginning the return to orthodoxy, undoing her erstwhile husband's
life-work before her own mysterious disappearance.