The Agony and the Ecstasy of Book Reviews

Gentle Reader, I have a confession I wish to make – I have not done it.  Yes, I freely admit I have not done it.  I am Cynthia Marsh, author of this parish and I have not done it!  I have not been sending my books out to review sites and have been very lax in my marketing.  There I’ve said it!  Been honest and stopped hiding behind the too busy, must take my plant to the vet or I got stuck in an airport in Azerbaijan with no internet access excuses.

Now the more practical and level-headed of you out there are probably puzzled right now.  Thinking ‘how does she think she’s going to sell any books if she doesn’t put herself about a bit and do some marketing?’  Well of course you are all right, ‘write it and they will come’ doesn’t quite cut the mustard in today’s cut and thrust world of short attention spans and millions of other things to read.

Hall of the Golden Crocodiles - The Aten Sequence 2 

So what stops authors blowing their own trumpets, sending their books into the world and marketing the hell out of them?  After extensive and long-drawn-out analysis (time I could have more profitably spent in writing a few more blog posts or annoying a few more book reviewers) I would have to say it is fear.  Scalp-numbing, blood-freezing, visceral fear!  You have spent months, if not years, working on your novel, short stories or poetry and now you are expected to send it out there to a bunch of strangers who have the power to dismiss it entirely with a few, well-chosen words.  Or even worse, ignore it entirely.

The only situation I can liken it to is when mother’s anxiously prepare their kids for their first day at school or play group.  They dress them up smartly, make sure they have enough felt pens and crayons to compete in the pencil case wars, pack up their lunch and deliver them to the school door.  And for perhaps the first time in their child’s short life they will have no control at all over what is now going to happen in their child’s life.  Will they be liked?  Will the teacher understand they don’t like carrots?  Will people know that he only pokes his tongue out at people because he’s scared?

Well that’s a bit like how you feel when you are ready to launch a new book onto the unsuspecting public.  There aren’t enough back-page blurbs and plot synopses in the world to really allow you to convey what this piece of fiction means to you, the endless hours you spent agonising over every little word and punctuation mark and what your protagonist really meant on page 72, fifth line down. And the worst thing to swallow is that you know that nobody really cares.

Because readers are buying a finished product, a book that can entertain, take them away from reality for a few hours, inform or make them think, and the author’s journey in producing that product is just an interesting little titbit for the author bio on Amazon.

Cynthia Marsh - author of The Aten Sequence Books

So what we authors really need is a much thicker skin, something many creative people lack.  There are many writers out there, of course, who are doing really well and making lots of money, because they have overcome their fears, or never doubted the quality and saleability of their work in the first place.  They may not even necessarily be the best writers in the world today, but they have the guts and drive to get out there and market their books, so they fully deserve all the success that comes their way.

I did read somewhere recently that most procrastinators are actually perfectionists and that is why they are so bad at starting new tasks.  I think a lot of authors, me included, are like this.  We can fuss, revise and edit for years but at some stage we will have to admit there is no such thing as the perfect book and get on with it.  And when we do that, it frees us up to write the next book and then the next one and our writing improves because we are doing more of it.

And because no book is perfect, we authors just have to get used to the reality of bad reviews.  As an author you simply can’t please everyone.  Someone out the, and probably quite a few someones, will not like your book.  They will not like the cover, they will not like the genre, they will not like the characters, the plot or the dialogue.  And this is Ok as they have a perfect right to not like your book, even if it took twenty four years and several nervous break downs to write.

If you get a bad review, all you can do as an author is accept the fact somebody did not like your book and take on board any constructive criticism they made.  After all, you want your writing to improve right?  Instead of viewing it as an attack on your precious oeuvre, thank the reviewer and take it as a chance to get a different perspective and an opportunity to learn and develop your writing skills.  Of course, writing a bad review is not the same thing as a reader attacking you personally as an author.  These types of reviews are best ignored and are not even worth the energy of a reply.  Unfortunately, the world of the internet is full of trolls trying to get a rise out of people, so take heed of the signs and do not feed the trolls.

But even though I have said I have not done my marketing, I have to confess to doing a little.  This led to a delightful book reviewer called Kathy Ree reviewing ‘Hall of theGolden Crocodiles – The Aten Sequence 2’ on her blog ‘Kitty Muse and Me’ and also posting the review on Amazon in the States.  This is where the ecstasy of book reviews comes in.  When you see those five little stars and realise someone else has loved your book.  Someone, moreover, who was not your mother, best friend or the guy down the road you promised a beer to if he read them all and posted reviews.  So I can’t thank Kathy enough for giving me my first independent book review in the US and a good one at that!

Yes book reviews can be agony, but they can also be ecstasy and, like it or not, you are not going to sell many books until you get them.  Readers these days want to know other people have read the book, they are reluctant to be the first.   Surprisingly, bad reviews do not do as much harm as you may think, as a large percentage of  reviews for ’50 Shades of Grey’ were not that flattering, but they still encouraged others to buy it.

If you are one of the rare outliers who will read books that catch your fancy that are still unknown, do the author a favour and write that review for them.  A few short sentences is all it takes and the writer will love you forever!

'I Was Really Going Places You Know' - The Lament of Tuy

Tuy is one of the important female characters in The Aten Sequence Books, efficiently looking after the practical side of Aten's life at the villa, while at the same time being a sarcastic thorn in his side.  But she too has her story and her dreams, and being stuck on Earth with Aten had very definitely never been part of her plans.

‘I was really going places you know,’ Tuy gulped, as two fat teardrops formed in the corner of her eyes and slowly tracked their way down her flushed cheeks.

‘I had plans, I had dreams, I was really going places.  And now look at me?  Stuck here in this hot, dusty hellhole that doesn’t even have a proper power supply.’

The guard cat broke off from his morning ablutions to fix her with his enigmatic feline stare.

‘Don’t look at me like that.  It’s not my fault that the only thing I’ve got to talk to is a cat.  At least you don’t answer back, which is more than I can say for some of them round here.’

Tuy flung the onions she had been peeling into the bowl with unnecessary vigour and turned around to fetch the goose that was hanging on the wall behind her.

‘And don’t think that I don’t know what you are up to?  If you put so much as one paw on this goose carcass, you’ll be going into the pot with it.  Don’t think I don’t know where that stuffed carp went last week.’

The guard cat looked mildly offended at this insinuation and returned to lovingly licking his front leg.

‘See, even you don’t take me seriously,’ Tuy wailed, as fresh tears started tumbling down her face.

‘But you don’t know; none of you know. I was really going someplace, someplace special.  I was the only one out of my clutch to even make it external processing and do you know how many get through and are given an exit permit? Only 2%!  I was in the top 2% of my clutch and look at me now?  A single mother stuck on a backward planet I don’t even know the name of.  Motherhood was never what I wanted, especially not at my age. And what am I going to do with him? There aren’t any opportunities for a young Galasian here and it’s no life for him stuck in that shed all day.’

The guard cat switched to cleaning his other front leg without even looking up to acknowledge Tuy’s distress.

‘He needs to be out in the fresh air, running and playing with the other youngsters. Not shunned for being different and locked away as if he were a monster.’

These words did cause the guard cat to temporarily interrupt his washing and look up at Tuy with an air of disbelief.  His sensitive nose could detect the rank odour of Piy locked up in his shed, even this far away in the kitchen, despite the strong tang of onions that was in the air and the gamey scent of a goose that had been hanging for a long time.

‘And it wasn’t just the exit permit I got.  I was one of only seven hundred and twenty females to be admitted into the Galactic Cocktail Shaking School on Mildorium 27.  Can you even begin to imagine what an achievement that was?’

The guard cat yawned delicately and turned around to lick his nether regions.  When would the tedious woman shut up?  At this rate she would never turn her back, so he could get at that goose.  She might think she had a hard life down here, but really she had no clue as to what he had to go through just to get the odd mouthful of food occasionally.  And cocktails? Really? She would have been better off going to a good mousing academy, though god knows how many small rodents she would have to kill every day to keep that malodorous turnling of hers fed.

‘It’s bad enough that you ignore me when I’m trying to talk to you, but do you have to wash your private parts on my kitchen table?” she asked him irritably.  ‘And how come you can’t talk like those royal cats can?’

If the guard cat had eyebrows he would have raised them in disbelief. Why on earth did the woman think he would talk to her? Having to listen to her rants as he was waiting for food was bad enough.

‘I was great at the cocktail shaking school; one of their fastest learners ever.  By the time I graduated I could mix over fifteen hundred cocktails from fourteen different planetary systems.  And did you know that I was one of only eight thousand graduates ever licensed to use slieppel juice from Grandorminian 75?  That stuff can fell a Lotkair Sloth with just two drops.  I had my pick of jobs.  I really thought that bar in the mining belt was going to be the first step in a glittering career.  It was just oozing with rich miners and droids, all with plenty of cash in their pockets and out for a good time.  The tips were fabulous.  Did I tell you the story of the night that tulsphate miner dropped a 560 carat diamond in my cleavage?

The cat elegantly stretched and then curled up into a ball of mackerel striped fur.  Was the woman going to rant all night?  What he really wanted was to have a quick nap, but he could almost guarantee that as soon as his eyes were closed that goose would be put in the baking pot and he would have lost his chance. But it couldn’t hurt to let the woman think he was asleep.

He could hear that Tuy had started plucking the large bird.  Time was running out and, in the mood she was in, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be around when she started to chop it up with her cleaver.

‘You can ignore me if you want, but I’ve still got my story.  That tulsphate miner loved me you know.  Said he’d take me on his next prospecting trip and buy me anything I wanted. Oh why did Aten have to come into my bar that night?  There were seventy five others on that strip. I mean it’s not like I ever fancied him or anything, but I’d never met one of the immortal ones before.  It’s not often a girl gets a chance to party with a member of the First Families.  He offered to show me his space ship and the next thing you know we’ve run out of fuel in the middle of nowhere. ‘

The guard cat curled up even tighter in the hope the woman would take the hint and stop talking.  Tuy, however, was just getting into her stride.

‘I mean how does one of the immortal ones do something that stupid?  They’re supposed to be role models for us, right? People we can look up to, not incompetent idiots who run out of fuel and then don’t know how to fix the problem.  If I’d known that I was going to be stuck sweeping and cooking in a scratchy linen robe and too much eye make-up I would have just stayed on the home planet.  I could have raised several clutches by now, not just one turnling.’

The guard cat could feel himself gradually dozing off.  His was so sleepy he felt like his head had been stuffed with cotton wool.  The woman’s voice now just sounded like a constant drone in his head and she wasn’t showing any signs of stopping any time soon.  If he wanted that goose he would have to do something drastic.

There was only one thing he could think of that was guaranteed to get her out of the kitchen in a hurry, leaving his coveted prize unattended.  So he slowly reached out his mind, probing until he found the wooden door of the shed Piy was locked in.  He could sense the Galasian turnling impotently hammering at the rough wooden slats trying to get out, so he pulsed some energy into the stout piece of rope that was holding the door closed.  After a few seconds it ignited in a blaze of hot, blue flames that rapidly burned through the rope. The next time Piy’s fist hit the door it swung abruptly open.

Any time now thought the guard cat smugly, as he started counting down from ten.  Ten, nine, eight, seven ....... Suddenly, a loud female scream, followed by the guttural roar of a Galasian turnling shattered the late afternoon silence that had been hanging over the villa.  More screaming and the sound of running feet followed.

Tuy, her tearful rant rudely interrupted by the commotion, angrily slammed the half-plucked goose back down on the table in a cloud of grey and white feathers.

‘Not again,’ she screamed. ‘How did he get out this time?  And why are those stupid girls screaming, it’s not like he’s anything to be scared of. I suppose I’m going to have to go and sort it out.  Not like anyone else is going to.’

She quickly wiped her hands clean on the scrap of linen she used as a towel and ran out of the room in the direction of the screaming.

The guard cat waited until he could hear her footsteps pounding down the verandah, before he lifted his head and looked at where the goose was now lying on the kitchen table.

These humans think they are so clever, he thought as he dragged the large bird off the table and out into the courtyard.  Now he could have his dinner in peace in his special hiding place behind the dung heap, have another leisurely wash and a good long sleep.

Bast – Ancient Egyptian Goddess of Cats

In the second book of the Aten Sequence ‘Hall of the Crocodiles’ we are introduced to Prince Dhutmose’s cat Ta-miu.  In the book Ta-miu is a very special royal talking cat who has a very important role to play in the unfolding of the story. We do know that the real, historical Prince Dhutmose did have a beloved pet called Ta-miu because her carved limestone coffin was discovered and is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.  What we don’t know is whether she could talk to her prince, but even if the Egyptian cats couldn’t talk or do magic they were revered by the Ancient Egyptians and they had an important cat goddess they called Bast.

Ancient Egyptian Bronze Cat

Cats were regarded very highly by the Ancient Egyptians, so it is perhaps not too surprising that they worshipped a powerful cat goddess called Bast or Bastet.  She is depicted as a cat or as a woman with the head of a feline.  She was a daughter of the sun god Ra and her name means ‘warmth of the sun’. In the pharaonic period she was worshipped as a sun deity but, after their arrival, the Greeks associated her with one of their lunar goddesses Artemis and she became known as a moon goddess.

Like most Ancient Egyptian deities Bast had many attributes.  In some guises she was an angry, vengeful goddess, one of her father Ra’s avenging deities sent to punish wrong doers and Egypt’s enemies.  At other times she was a kind, protective goddess who would shower you with blessings if you gained her favour.  She was also a goddess of fertility and love, with the cat being her sacred animal.   It was considered to be a great sin to harm a cat, one certain way of bringing Bast’s wrath down on your head.

It is thought that cats were first domesticated in the Middle East in around 10,000 BC.  They probably became so important to the Ancient Egyptians because they were so useful at killing vermin.  They would have hunted and killed the rats, mice and venomous snakes that lurked in the granaries, houses and also in the fields surrounding the ancient settlements.  They were also valued as domestic pets and there are tomb paintings that show these domesticated felines out hunting with their masters.

Bast was a very important, powerful goddess and her cult was spread the length of the Nile Valley, but the centre of her worship was at the city named after her in the Nile Delta. During pharaonic times the city was called Per-Bast or ‘House of Bast’ and it then became known as Bubastis.  It reached the peak of its importance during the 22^nd dynasty when Pharaoh Shoshenq I created it as his capital.  The city remained the capital of Egypt for over 230 years until the Persian invasion led by Cambyses II in 525 BC.

What is left of the ancient remains of the city lies on the outskirts of the modern industrial city of Zagazig, some 80 kms north of Cairo.  The great temple of Bast, which the historian Herodotus described as a building of great splendour and beauty, has been excavated.  The building of this temple commenced in the 4^th dynasty in the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu, who was the king who also constructed the Great Pyramid at Giza, and was extended and embellished by many successive pharaohs over the course of the next 1700 years.  The temple of Bast was built from blocks of valuable red granite that had to be transported all the way from the distant quarries at Aswan.

The temple attracted many worshippers and Herodotus also recorded that a great annual festival was held to venerate the goddess.  He noted that as many as 700,000 pilgrims would arrive in the town to celebrate, make votive offerings and join in the great procession.  There was also a famous oracle of Bast located in the city.

Egyptian Cat Mummy

One of the most common offerings made to gain favour and blessings from Bast was a mummified cat.  Thousands upon thousands of these cat mummies have been discovered and there is a huge cat cemetery situated in Bubastis itself.  This extensive cat necropolis was started in the Third Intermediate Period, and grew into a network of subterranean passages and tomb chambers made from mud brick some 200 metres north of the temple.  The cat mummies were placed in niches and on shelves along the walls.  Some of these cat mummies had been carefully wrapped in fine linen and placed in finely decorated coffins; others are much simpler, probably reflecting the wealth and status of the pilgrim.  Because so many of these cat mummies have been discovered in Egypt, in the recent past many of them were  ground up to use as fertiliser or burned for fuel.

Egyptian cat mummy image Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

Ancient Egyptian bronze cat image Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

Akhmim – Ancient Egypt’s Oldest City?

‘The Aten Sequence Books’ are science fantasy fiction novels, but I have used some real historical characters and locations in Ancient Egypt to create my stories.  One place that gets mentioned is an ancient city called Akhmim, as it was where Princess Merytamen’s wicked stepmother Queen Tiye came from. So where is the town of Akhmim and what was its importance in antiquity?

In the 16^th century the author and diplomat Leo Africanus claimed that Akhmim was the oldest city in Egypt.  So is it true?  How old is Akhmim and what was its importance to the mighty ancient Egyptian civilisation?  It is situated on the east bank of the River Nile in Upper Egypt, a few miles from the more bustling town of Sohag.  Its earliest beginnings are more than probably lost in the shifting sands of the desert, but clues of human habitation start to appear with artefacts from the Badarian culture in the 5^th century BC.  It is from the remains of these very early settlements and cemeteries that we see the first evidence of the development of agriculture in the Nile valley. They also made very distinctive pottery, which included polished red vessels with black rims.  Early artwork has also been discovered in the form of carved ivory figurines.

Statue of Merytamun at Akhmim

In pharaonic times the city was known as Ipu or Khent-Menu and was a centre of worship for the fertility god Min. In the late period the Greeks knew the city as Panopolis.  The cult of Min stretched back into predynastic times and he was usually shown as a man with black skin, holding his erect phallus in his left hand and holding a flail in his outstretched right hand.  Min was depicted with  black skin to show that he is a fertility deity and great festivals would be held every year to celebrate his ‘coming forth’, where worshippers would carry his statue in procession and present him with votive offerings. He was the god Egyptians would pray to for a successful annual inundation of the Nile followed by a bountiful harvest.  Oddly enough, lettuce was one of the key features of his festivals, possibly because when the leaves are ripped apart they secrete a milky substance that resembles semen, which is also an opiate and aphrodisiac.  The Greeks associated him with their god Pan, another fertility god who was often shown with the head and torso of a man and the lower limbs of a goat.

Tiye was the wife of the Pharaoh Amenophis III and Queen of Egypt towards the end of the 18^th dynasty in the period known as the New Kingdom.  Unusually, we know who her parents were as Amenophis III produced a series of commemorative ‘marriage scarabs’ stating that ‘the name of her father is Yuya, the name of her mother is Thuya; she is married to the great king whose southern border is at Karoy and whose northern is Naharin’.   These scarabs make it very clear that Queen Tiye was not of royal birth and it is believed that her parents came from the town of Akhmim.  The intact tomb of Yuya and Thuya was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1905 by James Quibell. The mummy of her father Yuya shows that he was unusually tall for an Egyptian of that period, had a beard and facial features that differed from those of a typical Egyptian. A theory has been put forward that he was a foreigner or at least of foreign descent, with some scholars pointing to the unusual spelling of his name as further evidence.

Mummy Mask of Yuya, Cairo Museum

Yuya was a courtier of Pharaoh Thutmosis IV and was a commander of the chariotry and then went on to serve his successor and son-in-law Amenophis III.  His titles included ‘Master of the Horse’, ‘King’s Lieutenant’ and ‘Father of the God.’  In his home town he held the titles ‘Priest of Min’, ‘Overseer of the Cattle of Min’ and ‘Lord of Akhmim.’  His wife Thuya also held a string of impressive, high status titles that included ‘Priestess of Amen’, ‘Chief of the Harem of Min’, ‘Chief of the Harem of Amen’ and ‘Chantress of Hathor’.  Their burial was robbed during antiquity, but much of the impressive, elegant furniture remained and both the mummies were discovered intact in their coffins.  They were known to have a son called Anen, who became known as the ‘Divine Father’ and also held the titles of ‘Chancellor of Lower Egypt’, ‘Second Prophet of Amun’, and ‘Priest of Heliopolis.’  Many scholars also believe that Ay, a prominent courtier in the reigns of Amenophis III, Akhenaten and Tutankhamun who then took the throne and ruled as Pharaoh for around four years, was also a son of Yuya and Thuya.  So although we have no evidence that Queen Tiye had royal blood, her family were obviously powerful and influential at the Egyptian court.

There is very little left of the pharaonic town of Ipu to be seen as many of the carved and dressed blocks of stone from the temples were taken away and used in later building projects.  In 1981 a temple dedicated to Min and his local consort Triphis, also known as Repyt, thought to have been built during the Graeco-Roman period was excavated to reveal remains of a monumental gate.  Fragments of statues of Ramesses II were discovered as well as a colossal statue of his daughter, and later great royal wife, Queen Merytamun.  This beautiful statue has been restored and now stands as the centrepiece of a small open-air museum.  Interestingly there are also some carved blocks from Akhetaten (Amarna) that had probably been scavenged to build the later structure.  More recently another temple dating to the time of Ramesses the Great has been found and the fragments of a broken colossal statue of this pharaoh lies partially buried by what used to be the gate.

There is a necropolis at Akhmim dating from pharaonic times, which has never been systematically excavated although some more recent discoveries include five tombs dating to the Old Kingdom.  There is also a necropolis at nearby el-Hawawish that is notable for its rock-cut tombs of the governors of the Nome who were buried there from the 4^th to the 11^th dynasties.  Also at nearby el-Salamuni there are more rock-cut tombs dating from the Graeco-Roman period and a chapel that was dedicated to Min. This rock chapel was thought to have been carved during the reign of Thutmosis III and decorated during the reign of Ay by Nakhtmin, who was the ‘First Prophet of Min’, with reliefs of Ay and his wife Tey worshipping local deities.  The chapel was known to the Greeks as the ‘Grotto of Pan’ and more reliefs were added depicting Ptolemy II Philadelphus during this period.

Bust of Queen Tiye

Magic is a very important part of the story in ‘The Aten Sequence Books’ and Akhmim is also known as a place where alchemy and Egyptian magic were very important.  Indeed the town was known by the name Khemmis or Chemmis, which may have been the basis for our modern word chemistry.  In ancient times the land of Egypt was called ‘Khem’ meaning ‘black earth’.  Some of the oldest known books on alchemy were written at the end of the 3^rd century AD by a famous alchemist called Zosimos of Panopolis, whose writings were among those of around forty alchemists that were placed in a compendium put together in Byzantium in the 7^th or 8^th centuries AD.  Alchemists concerned themselves with the transformation of base metals such as copper or lead into precious metals such as gold or silver.  They also acknowledged that a process of transformation and purification within themselves was as important as the outward changes in the metal and they worked more for the gaining of spiritual knowledge and development than they did for the material gains.  The greatest magician and alchemist of legend, Hermes Trismegistus, who was a composite of the Egyptian god of writing Thoth and the Greek Hermes, was also supposed to have lived for some time in the town.  So Aten’s attempts to turn gold into the fuel he needs for ship were perhaps an echo of the experiments these alchemists undertook.

These links between Akhmim and alchemy were to last for many centuries as in the 9^th century AD the celebrated Sufi Dhu’l al-Misri was born in Akhmim.  He thought to have been an alchemist and been able to perform miracles. He was a great scholar and travelled large distances across the Arabian Peninsula and through Syria in order to learn from the great teachers of the day and also to teach himself.  He died in 859 AD and is buried in Cairo’s City of the Dead.

So although Akhmim might now be a relatively unknown regional town in Middle Egypt, in antiquity it was a prosperous, bustling regional centre.  Queen Tiye is said to have owned vast estates in the area, which would have produced a vast array of agricultural produce. It still has a thriving weaving industry that produces fine silk and Egyptian cotton that is said to date back to the time of the pharaohs.  It became a centre for magic and alchemy during the Greek period, melding the ancient Egyptian traditions and knowledge with the philosophies the Greeks had brought with them.

Statue of Merytamun image Kurohito Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution - Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Mummy Mask of Yuya Wikimedia Commons Any Purpose

Bust of Queen Tiye image Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

My Very First Online Interview! An Author First For Me

I guess I was pretty naive when I started writing the first Aten Sequence book back in 2007.  I just sat down at my laptop one Sunday and started typing.  After typing five whole pages I was pretty impressed with myself.  Who knew that I could string so many words of fiction together? Perhaps not surprisingly, not a single one of those first words actually made it into the final draft, but they will always be important as the first steps in my writing journey. I even have them saved somewhere on my laptop.

Cynthia Marsh - Author of The Aten Sequence Books

But what I did not know then was how much other stuff I would need to learn in order to get my books written, produced and sold.  Because I chose to go down the self-publishing route, I quickly worked out that being an indie author means you either have to do everything yourself or pay someone else to do it for you. Oh, the lucky writers who just happen to be partnered up with a cover designer, editor or file formatter that will do freebies for them!

Like many authors, I have done a lot of things myself and paid to have some other things done for me.  My first foray into self publishing, which was a bit of a test really, was my collection of spooky short stories ‘Ghosts and Other Really Big Surprises.’  This was a totally DIY project and I put the cover together myself, formatted the file for Kindle Direct Publishing and uploaded it.  I have recently been wrestling with it in CreateSpace, so that I can have a printed version for sale and not just an ebook.

For The Aten Sequence Books, I wanted to have professional book covers designed.  I also wanted them to be available on more online book retailing sites.  So I chose to use BookBaby and have been very impressed with them so far, as they took my somewhat sketchy brief for the book covers and produced something very close to what I had envisaged in my mind’s eye.

But it is the book marketing and promotion that I have found the most challenging so far.  Write it and they will not necessarily come!  Now that self-publishing is so accessible and can be done for free, there are thousands upon thousands of indie books out there.  Some are amazing, some are good and some are ....., well just are.  But the challenge is how do I make my Aten Sequence Books stand out among so many others clamouring to be downloaded onto the e-readers across the globe? How do I persuade a potential reader to take a punt and spend some of their hard earned cash on a book written by an unknown author?

I was so focussed on the writing and editing side of things, that I neglected to read the advice on starting to promote your book at least a year before its release.  So I am already a late starter in the promotion game.  But impatience doesn’t help anything.  This is a marathon, not a sprint, and I have set my goal as doing one thing a day, however small, to market my books and get them out there. So you can imagine how excited I was when I saw that standoutbooks were looking to interview indie authors and they agreed to interview me.

Being a typical introvert writer, my first concern was what was I going to tell them?  I mean I write stories about other people, not about me.  How was I going to make me interesting?  There is a myth that writing is a glamorous profession.  Well maybe it is when you get to the level of success enjoyed by J K Rowling and others, but for us relative newbies writing means hours hunched over your laptop at home, quite often still in your pyjamas and picking cornflakes out of your hair.  So I had to put on my big girl pants and open up about myself, my writing and my books.  Not easy at the start, but as I started answering the questions it started to flow and I amazed myself at how much came out. 

I have to give standoutbooks a big thank you, as I think they have done an amazing job in putting the interview together online.  It looks really professional and I am very proud of it. I’d also really like to thank them for giving a few of us indie authors the chance to talk about our books.  We are all looking for a break, that first elusive whiff of a winning streak and I don’t think people realise how much it means to us when you tweet about our books, share our posts on Facebook , comment on our blogs or write a review on sites like Amazon or Goodreads.  So thank you to everyone who has ever shown their support for The Aten Sequence Books.  So make an indie author happy today and tweet this post or share it on Facebook – go on, you know you want to!

In case you missed this awesome interview you can catch it here - Author Interview: Cynthia Marsh

In Search of the Historical Prince Dhutmose

The Aten Sequence Books are set in Ancient Egypt and although many of the characters are purely fictional, I have ‘borrowed’ some real historical characters and woven them into my stories.

One of these characters is Prince Dhutmose; Crown Prince and eldest son of Pharaoh Amenophis III.  In the books he is a young prince undergoing his military training in the Kap, a training school for the young boys of royal and noble blood.  At the beginning of the story line he is just a young prince having a good time hunting, racing his chariot, wrestling and having fun with his friends before Aten shows up and embroils him in his schemes to steal the gold from the vaults of the temple of Karnak.  In the second book, ‘Hall of the Golden Crocodiles’, we also meet Dhutmose’s beloved pet, the cat Ta-miu who, being a royal cat, can talk, do magic and is much more than she seems. So what can history tell us about the real Prince Dhutmose?

Sarcophagus of Prince Thutmose's cat Ta-miu

Although we do not know a great deal about the historical Prince Dhutmose, isn’t it amazing that we do know that just over 3,000 years ago a young prince loved his cat?

For all our knowledge of ancient civilisations, we rarely catch even the faintest whispers of the personal, intimate lives that these people once led.  Even for royalty, beyond the formal inscriptions that rulers used to trumpet their achievements or show their reverence to their gods, we usually know very little about the real characters beneath the glittering regalia and formality of court life.

But just occasionally we do get a small glimpse into these past lives and loves, and one of these rare glimpses comes from a young boy’s love for his cat. Prince Dhutmose was so fond of his cat that he had a fine limestone sarcophagus carved for her, had her body mummified and then carefully buried. The limestone sarcophagus is now on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and shows the cat sitting before an offering table heaped with goodies for the afterlife.  It seems that her owner wanted her to enjoy her time after death as much as she had appreciated being a cosseted royal pet in life.  We know from the inscriptions that she was called Ta-miu, which literally meant ‘she-cat’ and that her owner was Crown Prince Dhutmose, or Thutmose, the eldest son of the mighty Pharaoh Amenophis III and his great royal wife, Queen Tiye.

Living in the 21^st century, where Prince William and Prince Harry have practically every moment of their lives captured on film and the details of their day-to-day lives endlessly scrutinised and pored over, it may seem strange to us that back in Ancient Egypt it was actually very rare for there to be any mention of royal children or even their queens, on a Pharaoh’s monuments. What we do know about the Egyptian royal families over the thousands of years of Egyptian history tends to have been pieced together from titles and inscriptions found in tombs or on statues or funerary equipment. Even today there is much speculation about some of the relationships in the Egyptian royal family and how they fitted together. However, this started to change towards the end of the 18^th dynasty and Amenophis III had his wife Queen Tiye shown alongside him on statues and had the names and titles of his children carved onto some of his monuments.  However, it was still usually only the royal princesses who were mentioned and during the ensuing Amarna period the famous heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten and his beautiful wife Queen Nefertiti were often shown with their six daughters.

So the fact that we know that Prince Dhutmose even existed is a miracle, as he did not outlive his father and become Pharaoh.  Although we do not know many details of his life, he seems to have been born between years 16-19 of his father’s reign and have died young sometime between years 25-30.  His titles were listed on Ta-miu’s sarcophagus as ‘Crown Prince, Overseer of the Priests of Upper and Lower Egypt, High Priest of Ptah in Memphis and Sm-Priest (of Ptah)’, so he could well have spent much of his short life in Egypt’s ancient capital Memphis.  As he was young, we also do not know whether these titles were purely honorary or whether he did undertake priestly duties in the temple of Ptah.  However, there is evidence that he officiated at the burial of one of the first Apis bulls at Saqqara, the large royal necropolis over on the west bank of the Nile from Memphis.  He may also have had connections to the military as an ivory whip found in the tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun is inscribed with the titles ‘The King’s son, the troop commander, Thutmose, repeating of births’, although again we cannot really be sure that the whip’s owner was our Dhutmose and not another royal prince with the same name.

How Prince Dhutmose died or his exact age at death is unknown, but his demise paved the way for the emergence of his younger brother Prince Amenophis onto the political scene.  It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if the young prince had lived and had succeeded to his father’s throne.  Would he have led Egypt away from the worship of Amen and the traditional gods as his brother was to do, or did he share Akhenaten’s beliefs in the pre-eminence of the Aten?  Prince Dhutmose’s tomb has never been discovered, but there is a mummy that was discovered in the KV35 cache in the tomb of Amenophis II that has been identified by some as his remains, although others think that it may be Prince Webensenu, a son of Amenophis II, as some of his canopic jars were also found in the tomb.  The mummy is of a young boy of around 11 years of age, who still wears the sidelock of youth, and his identification as Prince Dhutmose comes from the proximity of the remains to another mummy known as the ‘elder lady’ who has been identified through DNA analysis as being Queen Tiye, his mother.

Maybe there is more evidence of Prince Dhutmose still to be excavated from beneath the shifting sands off Egypt and we will be able to piece together some more of the details of his life?  Maybe even his tomb is still out there somewhere in the hills of Thebes or in the necropolis of Saqqara waiting to be found?  But the one thing we do know is that the young prince dearly loved his cat.


Sarcophagus of Prince Thutmose's cat Ta-miu image, Larazoni Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Writing Success – You Might Want To Start Telling a Different Story

What is your definition of writing success?  Is it rave reviews, worldwide fame, number of books sold, cash in the bank or the fact that your nearest and dearest think that your book is the best thing ever written since Shakespeare laid down his quill? Since I self published my first book in the Aten Sequence, Pharaoh’s Gold, like most newbie authors I have been reading all the blogs and forum posts about how to be a great author and promote my books.

Is this what success looks like? Yes please!

It seems like everyone has an opinion, which is great, but also that they believe that the way they have carved out their success is the only way to go. Some of these posts have led to panic and a sinking pit in my stomach that my books will never be a success and guess what – that it is all my fault! Yep, it’s totally my fault.  I didn’t read the post about beginning to promote my book at least a year before I released it on to the unsuspecting public, I haven’t sent it out to thousands of reviewers, I haven’t sent out press releases, done signings in coffee shops, tweeted my little heart out, amassed 10 million Facebook fans or any of the other myriad things that I have read that I MUST do or my books don’t stand a chance.

Now I’m not knocking any of the above marketing tools, they are all valid and have worked for many people.  What I think that I’m trying to say is that if you get too caught up in reading all the writing and publishing advice out there, it can literally paralyse you.  The task is too big, the amount of work formidable and only someone with the iron determination to work twenty four hours a day with no distractions will be successful and deserves to be successful.  Yes, you heard the word correctly – deserves.  There is a real evangelical, whip yourself until the blood runs feeling out there in author blogland.  You must at least half-kill yourself to succeed or you do not deserve it! I have learned that pure luck or success springing from nowhere seems only to inflame the mob, leading to howls of outrage and hisses of disbelief.  To earn your success, you have to suffer.  You have to be able to sit in that interview chair at the end of it all, dripping wounds on show, telling it like it was - a true tale of torture and suffering.


Now in my naivety I thought that stringing together around 70,000 words in a vaguely coherent story was the real hard work, so I was a bit shocked when I read that I still had the big mountain to climb.  For several months I panicked, I floundered around; I did a bit and then didn’t do most of it.  I felt totally overwhelmed by this huge, seemingly insurmountable obstacle that had been placed in front of me.  How was I even going to start building that shiny author website with lots of singing, moving gizmos and buttons?  What about all these book signing gigs, talks and radio shows?  How are all these other people doing it?

But after a lot of deep breathing, I decided that I needed to write another success story, one that was uniquely my own.  It took a lot of sifting through my beliefs, taking a hard look at all the things I have read and learned and examining my own priorities before I came to a startling conclusion. And this conclusion was that success for me was the pure joy and exhilaration I got from writing my book.  It was the process of crafting the story, creating the characters and bringing their very world into existence.  I have self published the first book in the Aten Sequence, am about to release the second and am currently writing the third. 

These characters I now know as well as my own family and friends.  Even if I don’t write every day, I will still be thinking about them, plotting a new part of the story or trying to change a bit I have already written to make it better.  Aten, Druitt, Neferhotep, Merytamen, Luke and all the others are now my mates; friends that I spend a lot of time with.  For the first time, I am killing off one of my characters and it is bringing a lump to my throat as I write the words that seal his fate.

Writing success for me is the joy I feel every day when I sit down at my laptop and continue my story or start writing a completely new one.  There are so many different characters out there, so many situations, events and emotions that I know that I will never run out of words.  Not even if somebody offered me £1 million to stop writing would I take it, because it is a part of who I am.  Writing for me is happiness, freedom, exhilaration and fulfilment.

 Every author is different and on their own path to success, so my advice would be to take on board any knowledge, tips and tools that resonate with you, that you know you are going to enjoy working with and just go for it. More importantly, know that trusting your own instincts and following your heart will lead you more surely towards your goal than any advice given by others, however well meant.


Do I want my Aten Sequence books to be read by lots of other people? Do I want to find fame and fortune with them? Yes of course I do and I know that I will probably have to use some of the marketing and promotional tools that luckily we now have available to do it.  But I’m open to experiencing pure luck and being an overnight success with no effort involved.  I’m going to stop beating myself up about what I don’t do and give myself a big pat on the back for what I do get done.  For me, the path to success is no longer through suffering and hardship. I’m going to spend my precious time doing more of what lights my life up, which is writing.  I’m going to start writing myself a different success story.

Character Interview - Ronalda Bauxneitner from the Interplanetary Daily Gossip Talks With Druitt

Ronalda Bauxneitner reporting from the Interplanetary Daily Gossip

Modern Gurneh and the Ramesseum

“Stulfano, can you adjust the lighting over here?  I think we need to get a better angle, all that linen is just getting in the way?”

“Best we can do Ronalda.  Ready to roll in 3,2,1.....”

“Hi, this is Ronalda Bauxneitner from the Interplanetary Daily Gossip broadcasting from Planet Earth as part of our remote worlds and alien diversity programme. We have come here today as we have received a tip off that a member of the First Families is currently sojourning here.  Does this mean that after millennia in isolation and obscurity that Earth is finally to be opened up to inter dimensional tourism? Or is this an unauthorised visit that is, in fact, a breach of Galactic Protocols?”

“I am currently standing outside a charming rustic villa in Ancient Egypt, where I have been lucky enough to secure an interview with one of the entourage of First Family member Aten, who will hopefully be able to give us the inside scoop on why he is here, the purpose of his visit and whether or not he was given special authorization by his father’s High Council to visit a designated ‘primitive’ world.”

“Ah, here he is now.  Say hello to our millions of viewers Mr Montague.”

(Camera pans on to large bulky figure with its face and head covered by a linen shawl.)

“Druitt, my name is Druitt.”

“Oh, well welcome Mr Druitt Montague.”

“No, no Montague Druitt.”

“Mr Druitt, I am having trouble hearing you.  Do you think that you could take that linen shawl off your face?”

“I would prefer not to Miss Bauxneitner, as I would not like to alarm your viewers.”

“Come, come, I am sure that you are a very handsome man.”

“Well, mother always used to tell me that I had inherited all the looks in the family, but that was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before I met Aten!”

“You are intriguing me?  I have come across many different responses to having met Aten in my time, but having to cover their face afterwards was not one of them?”

“Well it was the spell that went wrong.....then not changing me back...Oh I’m not sure I should be telling you any of this!”

“You can tell me Mr Uittmon. Everything that you say on the Interplanetary Daily Gossip is totally confidential.”

“But I thought you said that you had millions of viewers?”

“Yes, but as they are all at least eighty six light years away they don’t really count do they?  So tell me some more about this spell that went wrong?”

“It’s all a bit embarrassing, so I would rather not.”

“Come, come Mr Montru, we are all friends here. It helps to talk you know.”

“Well, his intentions were good, you know.  He wanted to catch that murderer, but it just all went a bit wrong. Maybe the fog and the police whistles distracted him or something?”

“I am going to take a wild guess that you are not from this time frame?”

“Eer yes, I think. This was in London in 1888. You know London in England?”

“I have just been told through my ear piece that this was in a time period called ‘Victorian, is that correct ?”

“I think so, from things I have read from a later date.  Certainly Queen Victoria was ruling our mighty empire at that time.”

“So what was Aten doing there and how did you meet him?”

“Well we didn’t meet as such; it was just an unfortunate coincidence that I got in the path of that spell.  All very irregular of course, not having been formally introduced or anything. Deuced awkward in fact.  I have never forgiven myself for not being able to say farewell and explain to mother.”

“But you still haven’t told us what Aten was doing in Victorian England and why he is now here in Ancient Egypt?  Where is Aten, by the way?  We would really like to talk with him.”

“Aten is out, paying calls. And I really don’t feel that it my place to disclose his social arrangements to a complete stranger.”

“Well, I think you’ll find that Aten and I go back a long way Mr Montague. I’m sure that he remembers me fondly.”

“Mr Druitt.  My name is Druitt!  I can’t recall him ever having mentioned you. But it is all so strange here, that it might have slipped my memory.”

“But this looks like such a charming old villa. So very quaint!  How does living here differ from your lifestyle in Victorian London?”

“Oh it is dreadful!  You can get none of the little necessities that you need in order to live like a civilised gentleman.  There is no running water, the dust gets everywhere and don’t get me started on the food!  The food is nothing like what I used to enjoy at home.  Mother understood my delicate constitution so perfectly and would have cook prepare just the right kind of little delicacies that my poor stomach could tolerate.  Here all I get is bread, onions and that filthy cloudy stuff that they call beer. Can you imagine what it is like to have to start the day without even a decent cup of tea inside you?  At least when we lived on the ship, the computer would always have a pot of Earl Grey, a lightly coddled egg and two slices of white toast ready for me when I arose.”

“So Mr Montuitt, why has Aten moved you here into the villa and away from the home comforts of the ship? After all, it can’t be particularly comfortable for him either?”

“Druitt, woman!  My name is Montague Druitt. Well he lives in a completely different style to the rest of us you know.  Waited on hand and foot by that Tuy woman, servants to pour water for his baths, all the best foods and wine.”

“You sound a bit bitter there Mr Dr.... oh never mind.  Do you feel that Aten is not treating you well?  Would you like to give us a full exposé?”

“Well, no, I mean, I wouldn’t go that far!”

“So why are you living in the villa exactly?”

“Oh it is all too embarrassing and I don’t think that Aten would be best pleased if I told you anything?”

“Well Mr....., whatever your name is, we have millions of viewers here who are just dying to hear the full story about what Aten is doing on this planet.  Did he get a special dispensation to visit do you know?  Can you show us the certificate?  And why is he staying so long?  Is he putting together a plan to open up Earth to inter dimensional tourism?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.  It’s nothing like that.  But I don’t feel that it is my place to discuss Aten’s circumstances.”

“Are you scared of him Mr Drumont?”

“No, no of course not.  But he can get very tetchy, you know.”

“Well you seem to be very tense.  Are you feeling tense? You are scared of him aren’t you?”

“Look I don’t have to tell you anything. Please go away.”

“Oh but you do.  When we arrived you signed a full disclosure contract, which includes full access to seeing your face.  Failure to comply can lead to prosecution and nine years hard labour in the titanium mines of Sthundalor. So who are you most frightened of now?”

“You can’t do that?  You never said that all those funny alien squiggles meant that?  You said that it was just a formality, something to satisfy your producers?”

“You should never sign anything without reading it and having it checked out by your own lawyers Mr Monty.  If you had read down a few pages you will have seen that The Interplanetary Daily Gossip is legally obliged to provide you with a translator and a lawyer, but by signing you have waived any rights that you had.  We have translators in over twenty six million languages and dialects you know, quite the most comprehensive translating service in this quadrant of the universe.”

“Does nobody speak English anymore?”

“Quite frankly Mr Monuitt, you are exceedingly lucky that we have a translator that does speak English and who was able to programme my earpiece.  It is not designated a ‘rare, obscure archaic language’ for nothing you know.  Only a handful of scholars in any given millennium choose to major in it.”

“Druitt, the name is Druitt.  If you are going to prosecute me, you can at least get my name right.”

“Come, come Mr Druitt did you say?  Things have taken an unpleasant turn. All you have to do is tell us why Aten is here on planet Earth and show us your face.  Then we will go away and leave you in peace. Promise!”

“You really mean that?”

“Sure and would it help you make your mind if I told you a little secret?  Bread and onions would be regarded as luxury gourmet cuisine in the titanium mines. You would also never see sunlight for nine years and would be working back to back, non-stop shifts.  I hear that they find the whip to be very useful in encouraging lazy workers.  Why you are trembling, are you feeling alright?”

“If I tell you will you promise not to let Aten know that I told?”

“Of course, as I said before, everything you tell us is just between us and my millions of viewers.  But first, let us have a look at your face?  Stulfano, take that cloth away with the long tongs.  You don’t want to be touching it, it looks filthy and in this backwater could even be lousy.”

“I say, that’s a bit rude.  Owww, you’ve got my ear with those things. Please let it go, you are hurting me. I’m going to howl.”

My, my you really don’t look much like a Victorian gentleman, do you?  More like some kind of dog?”

“A basset hound, there I said it, I now have the features of a basset hound.  Good solid breed.  Could have been much worse.”

“So to all our viewers who are just tuning in, we are here on planet Earth interviewing a member of First Family Aten’s entourage, who has just very kindly just exposed his face to us.  Shockingly, this human has the features, fur and claws of some kind of dog.  Should this kind a thing be allowed in a modern galaxy?  Please vote now on the poll that you will see flashing up on your screen.”

“I’m not sure it was allowed exactly.”

“So have you always looked like that Mr Drumont?”

“Of course not, I told you before; people used to think me rather handsome, especially the young ladies I have been told.  Can I please cover up again, this is rather too embarrassing.”

“So Aten got a change spell wrong again?”

“No, yes, I mean....  I mean I’m sure he never meant it to happen. Please give me my shawl back?

“Not until you tell us what Aten is doing here?”

“Oh give me that, stop dangling it just within reach and then jerking it back.  I’m sure that your viewers are not enjoying the sight of my face or my obvious discomfort.”

“I think that you will find that our viewers are a broad-minded crowd. Just tell us what he is doing here and it will all be over.”

“He’s stuck.  There, I told you. He’s stuck!”

“Stuck?  How very curious.  And how exactly did such a prominent member of galaxy society get stuck on a rock like this?”

“I have already told you too much.  Please go away?”

“Just answer this question and I promise that we will leave you in peace.”

“And never come back?”

“Never. We promise.”

“Well if you promise.  He ran out of fuel.  He forgot to fill up at the last inter galactic filling station and so he is stuck here until he can get more fuel.”

“For our viewers just tuning in, this is possibly the scoop of the century.  First Family member Aten has fluffed yet another change spell, leaving this poor human looking like a dog.  Will he finally be censured this time by the High Council?  But most shockingly, he is here on Earth because he is stuck.  That’s right folks, you heard it here first.  The great Aten is stuck on Earth.”

“Oh I say, that’s a bit harsh.”

“We now have to be moving on  to our next segment, bringing you the interplanetary gossip that you crave every minute of every day. But before I go I would like to thank Mr Drutly for his kind co-operation and for giving us this amazing scoop.  How will the news that Aten is stuck go down on his home planet?  Stay tuned as I try and track down a family member to interview. And as a gesture of our appreciation Mr Truitgue, I would like to give you this complimentary flask of fuel.  I think that you will find that it is just enough to get you some hot water to bathe in and make yourself a cup of tea.  You will really have to improve hygiene around here if you want to pull the tourists in you know, people expect decent amenities these days.  You can’t just rely on the back to primitive crowd to turn a profit.  Stulfano, get us out of here.

(Low sobs coming from Druitt can be heard and then the rattle of chariot wheels turning into the courtyard.)

“Druitt, why are you standing out in the sun like an idiot?  Are you crying?  And what’s that you’re holding?”

“It’s a complimentary flask of ship’s fuel.”

“Where the devil did you get that?”

“Some reporter, Ronalda something or other from the Interplanetary Daily Gossip gave it to me.”

“Ronalda Bauxneitner was here?  What did you tell her?  How did she know I was here?”

“I told here as little as I could, but she threatened me.”

“She beat you or hold your paws over hot coals?”

“No, no she threatened to prosecute me and send me to some titanium mines where they wouldn’t feed me for years.”

“And you believed her?”

“Well she said it was in the thing she made me sign.”

“Give me strength. Druitt what did you say?”

“Only that you were stuck and she guessed about the change spell when she saw my face.”

“You told Ronalda Bauxneitner that I was stuck?  You told Ronalda Bauxneitner that I got the change spell wrong?  So the whole universe including Uncle Lucie and my father now know I’m stuck on this sorry planet with a loser like you? How do you think that makes me look? And did another teensy little thing not occur to you?”

“Like what?”

“Like that to get here she would have had to have come in a ship that had fuel in it? Those roving reporter vessels never carry less than five spare canisters. If you had had the sense to keep her here until I got back, we could all be on our way home by now?”

“But I thought that you just would have wanted her to be gone as soon as possible.”

“Please don’t think Druitt, just do as you are told occasionally.  Give me that flask before you do something stupid with it.  Do I have to do everything around here?  What have I done to deserve being stuck here with a bunch of losers like you?”

“But she said that I could use the fuel to heat water for a bath.”

“In your dreams, Druitt I have much better uses for this!”

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You can follow Aten and Druitt’s adventures in Pharaoh's Gold - Aten Sequence 1.  You can get it on Amazon:  http://amzn.to/13GNgPF or from the itunes bookstore, Sony, Kobo, Barnes&Noble, Copia, eBookPie, Gardener’s and eSentral. You don't even need a Kindle because you can download an app for free from Amazon.

Nefertiti – Where Did She Come From and Where Did She Go?

When Aten gets stuck on Earth, he goes to Ancient Egypt at the beginning of the Amarna period so that he can steal the gold kept in the vaults of the great temple of Amen at Karnak. He manages to drag most of the Egyptian royal family into his adventures and this includes possibly the most beautiful queen to ever reign in Egypt, Nefertiti.  Although in the Aten Sequence books Nefertiti’s exploits are all fictional, there is a real mystery surrounding the historical queen as her origins are shadowy and we don’t know how or when she died. So who was this charismatic, glamorous Egyptian queen, whose name was ‘a beautiful woman has come’?  Where did she come from and what happened to her?

Queen Nefertiti

There are many theories about the origins of Nefertiti.  She is first documented historically after the accession to the throne of her husband Amenophis IV, who later became known as Akhenaten.  She was his Great Royal Wife, and unlike earlier Egyptian consorts, who were shadowy figures, was depicted on temple and tomb walls and in statuary in equal size to her husband.  She is also shown engaging in some unusual activities for a queen, such as driving her own chariot and even smiting the enemies of Egypt, imagery that is normally reserved for kings.  The precedent had been set in the earlier reign of her husband’s father Amenophis III, when his Great Royal Wife Tiye was given prominence on many of his monuments. Also unusual in Egyptian art, were the images of the royal couple kissing and embracing and showing affection to their daughters.  Either they really were a devoted couple in love; or that putting emphasis on or depicting the love and closeness of the royal family was important in some way to the new cult of the Aten.

It is very unlikely that Nefertiti was a daughter of Amenophis III, as her titles do not include ‘King’s Daughter’, ‘King’s Daughter Whom He Loves’ or ‘King’s Daughter of His Body’.  She is referred to as ‘Heiress’, ‘Lady of the Two Lands’, ‘Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt’ and ‘Great Royal Wife’, but none of these titles imply in any way that she came from a royal background.

It has been postulated that Nefertiti was a foreign princess; sent from the court of either the Hittites or the Mitanni to be married to pharaoh and cement alliances between the two countries.  However, there is no evidence to either support this or refute it.   Several princesses from foreign courts are on record as arriving in the harem of Amenophis III.  Tadukhipa, the daughter of Tushratta King of Mitanni arrived at court in Year 36, and has been identified both with Nefertiti and a lesser wife of Akhenaten called Kiya.

If Nefertiti was, indeed, of Egyptian descent; then who were her parents?  Her only known relative is her sister, or half-sister, Mutnodjmet, whose name means ‘Sweet One of Mut’.  She is referred to in inscriptions in tombs at Amarna as ‘sister of the King’s Great Wife, Neferneferuaten-Nefertiti’ and is often portrayed with the elder three of Nefertiti’s own daughters. Mutnodjmet is also frequently depicted being accompanied by two dwarfs.  She is believed to have been a daughter of Ay and Tey, as she features prominently in their tomb at Amarna

.

Ay was a prominent courtier of Akhenaten’s, holding the title ‘Overseer of All the Horses of His Majesty’.  He is thought to have been the son of Yuya and Thuya,who originated from the regional town of Akhmin, therefore making him a brother to Tiye, the Great Royal Wife of Amenophis III.  Therefore, if Ay was also the father of Nefertiti, this would explain how she was close enough to the Royal Family to marry one of the princes.  However, there is no indication that Ay’s wife Tey was Nefertiti’s birth mother, as nowhere does she claim the title of Queen’s mother, only that of nurse.  Neither does Ay claim the title of ‘Queen’s Father’; but he did claim the title ‘God’s Father’ which had been held by his father Yuya before him.  Yuya was a fairly uncommon name in Ancient Egypt, which has led to a belief that he, too, was of foreign origin.

Nefertiti was influential in Akhenaten’s breaking away from the old god’s of Egypt and the adopting of the worship of the Aten.  By year 5, Amenophis IV had changed his name to Akhenaten and by Year 7 the royal couple with their daughters had moved to the new capital they had built at Akhetaten, modern day Amarna.  The couple had six daughters, Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten, Neferneferure and Setepenre.  There is no evidence that they had any sons; but Amenophis III in the previous reign had never mentioned any of his sons on his monuments, so there could have been princes that we have no evidence for.  Amenophis III also paved the way to the prominence of the Amarna princesses on their father’s monuments, as he portrayed his daughter’s with their names and titles on his statues and temples.  Indeed, several of them were also given the title ‘King’s Wife’, indicating that they were married to their father, although we do not know whether these marriages were actual or purely symbolic.

The cracks seem to have started appearing at Akhetaten around Year 12.  Princess Meketaten appears to have died at that time.  There are theories that she died in childbirth, or that she died of a plague that was sweeping through the Middle East during this period.  The two younger princesses’, Neferneferure and Setepenre also seem to disappear from the records around that time, also possibly victims of the plague.

Nefertiti herself disappears from history around Year 14 of her husband’s reign.  The question is did she die, did she fall from grace in some way, or did she change her name and rule briefly as co-regent and as pharaoh after her husband’s death?  There are no historical records of her death and there is no evidence of her being buried in the royal tomb at Amarna, although some jewellery bearing her cartouche was discovered outside.

Royal Chariot at Amarna

 

In the tomb of Amenophis II in the Valley of the Kings, three mummies were found in a side chamber.  One of these, known as the ‘Younger Woman’ was put forward as being the mummy of Nefertiti.  The style of mummification points to the late 18^th dynasty, there was a distinctive wig in the ‘Nubian’ style known to be worn by Nefertiti found nearby, the mummy has double piercing in her ears as Nefertiti is depicted as having, the lower half of the face is mutilated, and a snapped off arm in the bent position reserved for royal women of the period was believed to have belonged to the body.  However, other women of the royal court are depicted wearing similar wigs and with double pierced ears.  It was believed that the mutilation of the face was a deliberate act to destroy the identity of the mummy after embalming had taken place, as an act of vengeance against the wife of the ‘heretic’ king.

 

However, it has been argued that if the wound had been inflicted post-embalming there would be fragments of bone and dried flesh in it.  Indeed, it was pointed out that there were very few pieces of the relevant bones found in the sinus cavity and therefore it was most likely that the wound was inflicted before death.  It was also found that the bent arm did not actually belong to the mummy; but it was rather a straight arm also found in the vicinity that was the correct one.  However, when the DNA of the ‘Younger Woman’ mummy was analysed during the ‘Tutankhamun Family Project’ in 2010, it was shown that this royal lady was, in fact, one of the daughters of Amenophis III and Queen Tiye and the mother of the famous boy king Tutankhamun. Which daughter is not certain, but although Amenophis III married several of his daughters, there is no evidence that he married either Nebetah or Baketaten, so they could have married their brother and given birth to Tutankhamun.

So the mummy of the beautiful Queen Nefertiti has still not been found. Positively identifying her remains may have given us valuable evidence about how she was related to the royal family, her health during her life and, possibly. give us the cause of her death.  So what was her eventual fate?  The ‘fall from grace’ theory comes from the fact that some cartouches and titles of Nefertiti were thought to have been removed from monuments and replaced by those of her daughter Meritaten’s.  It is now believed, however, that it was one of Akhenaten’s other queens, Kiya, whose name and titles were replaced.

Nefertiti as an older woman

The theory that seems to be gaining popularity is the one that Nefertiti lived on for several years under a different name, either as a Co-Regent with Akhenaten or as pharaoh on her own.  It is believed by some that she first changed her name to Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten as Co-regent and then to Ankhkheperure Smenkhare, as she ruled briefly alone.  Some of the evidence for this comes from the Co-Regency Stela in the Petrie Museum in London, which depicts Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Meritaten.  At some time later Nefertiti’s name was chiselled out and replaced with Ankhkheperure Neferneferuaten, and Meritaten’s replaced with that of her sister Ankhesenpaaten.  The two names have also been associated with the ephemeral pharaoh Smenkhare, who is thought to have ruled for approximately three years after the death of Akhenaten, and who was believed to be married to the royal couple’s eldest daughter Meritaten.  It has been suggested that Nefertiti assumed the crown as Smenkhare, and that Meritaten acted as her queen consort after the death of Akhenaten.

It may be that we will never really know what happened in those shadowy years at the court at Akhetaten.  Is the truth still buried under the shifting sands of Egypt, or has all the evidence been lost forever?  There is undoubtedly a lot still to be found, and new discoveries, such as the new tomb KV 63 in the Valley of the Kings, will hopefully fill in some of the missing details of the this fascinating period in Egypt’s ancient past.


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Queen Nefertiti image Wikimedia Commons Public Domain
Older Nefertiti image Wikimedia Commons Public Domain
Amarna Chariot Image Kurohito Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported