Joyce Tyldesley

En noviembre de 1922, más de un siglo después de la localización de la primera tumba en el Valle de los Reyes y tras años de estudio, planificación y escrutinio del lugar, Howard Carter protagonizó el que a día de hoy sigue siendo el hallazgo arqueológico más importante de todos los tiempos, el de la tumba de Tutankamón.
La relevancia de su descubrimiento estriba en el hecho de que, de las más de sesenta tumbas encontradas, ésta era la única que permanecía intacta. Repleta de tesoros, ropas, vasijas, momias y símbolos religiosos, permitía reconstruir la vida en el Egipto antiguo y daba luz a las investigaciones que los egiptólogos llevaban décadas realizando. Un hito que sería el germen de la fascinación que aún hoy despiertan en occidente las momias y sus supuestas maldiciones.… (plus d'informations)

Overall, I think that Joyce Tyldesley did a good job with this book. However, I was disappointed in this book, which is why I gave this book a 3 out of 5 star rating — in actuality, I would put the rating at 3.5 out of 5 stars, but Goodreads doesn’t have the option of half-star ratings.
The summary states that Tyldesley goes over Nefertiti’s life and afterlife and how her image — and her bust — became famous. The title of the book, to an extent, is more telling: “Nefertiti’s Face: The Creation of an Icon.” However, from what I read and understood in this book, Tyldesley focuses more on two things: (1) Ahenaten’s life and reign, and (2) the bust of Nefertiti. She doesn’t really focus on Nefertiti’s personal life or possible rule over 18th dynasty Egypt, which is what I was hoping for in this book.
This is what I found to be the most disappointing. My disappointment lies mostly with me, and it’s also possible that it stems from the fact that I started, finished, and enjoyed Kara Cooney’s recent book, “When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt” this past week, in which the chapter on Nefertiti did a decent job (given its one-chapter limit) in attempting to dig into Nefertiti’s life, with no focus on the bust, as much as humanly possible with today’s knowledge about said queen.
As I mentioned, this was a very well done book (which is why my own personal rating is 3.5 out of 5 stars), but the summary was misleading. If the summary was truer to the actual content and flow of the book — and if Tyldesley tried to focus more on Nefertiti’s life rather than the life and popularity of the bust — I would have given this book a better rating.… (plus d'informations)