Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Early Days
Gayle Gibson is a respected Canadian Egyptologist and a Departmental Associate at the Royal Ontario Museum. She worked for over 20 years as a popular teacher, lecturer and Egypt specialist at the ROM, appears frequently on television as a "guest expert" and has led many groups around Egypt! Her main area of expertise as an Egyptologist concerns mummies and their coffins. Gibson was partially responsible for identifying Pharaoh Ramesses I, (Ramesses II's grandfather!) among the forlorn mummies at the old Niagara museum, and giving him an assist on the road home to Egypt.
Explore Akhenaten and the Amarna Age—Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, and rivals—in a talk series on Egypt's most controversial era.
Akhenaten, a king of the Eighteenth Dynasty, was called 'the first individual in history' by the Egyptologist James Henry Breasted. He's been called some other things, too: a madman, a fascist, or maybe Moses. Respectable scholars have almost come to blows about him.
Akhenaten was not the only larger-than-life figure in his world. In this series of talks we'll also meet his father, Amenhotep the Magnificent, his wife, Nefertiti, and son, Tutankhamun. Among the non-royals, we'll visit one of the greatest geniuses of human history, Amenhotep sa Hapu; the elusive Ay, Master of Horses, God's Father, and, eventually, pharaoh; and the brilliant, inscrutable General Horemheb who put an end to Akhenaten's Revolution and set the stage for Seti I and Ramesses the Great.
Amenhotep III's chosen heir was Prince Thutmose, but when that young man died, the succession passed to another Amenhotep. This boy was intensely interested in theology and in art. Soon after his coronation, he changed his name to Akhenaten. He married a beautiful woman who seems to have understood and shared his passions, Nefertiti. Together, they turned from ancient traditions and established the Aten as the sole god.
Gayle Gibson's Bibliography for Talk: Akhenaten and Nefertiti: Early Days
Kamrin, Janice. iMalkata: a Joint Expedition. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Ancient Egyptian Heritage and Archaeology have been excavating and studying the site of Malkata since 2007, continuing the work of other expeditions going back to 1888. They publish regular reports which are available online. The reports (2008-2018) are a mixture of fairly technical details of excavation with information about the course of the work, and the difficulties involved in protecting the unique site from damage by encroaching vegetation, hot air balloons landing, local folks using the site as a garbage dump, and constant pressure from local farmers to encroach on archaeological areas. Really fascinating. https://imalqata.wordpress.com/history-of-the-excavations/
Kennedy, Titus. 2019. "The Land of the š3sw (Nomads) of yhw3 at Soleb," Dotawa: A Journal of Nubian Studies, 6(1) UC Santa Barbara. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/07x6659z
This is a very recent scholarly publication about that name ring suggesting the 'Nomads of Yahweh' were known to Amenhotep III. Very good and clear recent colour photographs of the site. Free access.
Quiles, Anita, et al. 2025. "An insight over time into undecorated tombs of the Kings' Valley (Luxor, Egypt): the challenge of 14C dating." Journal of Archaeological Science. A fairly technical paper on the problem of achieving solid dates for archaeological material, particularly human remains. This is as up-to-date as anything you'll find on that tomb containing remains of so many princes and princesses. Among other interesting new information, the team reports that there were remains of eighty-three people in KV 40, not forty as previously reported. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.105253
Redford, Donald. 1974. "The Akhenaten Temple Project and Karnak Excavations," Expedition. Volume 21, number 2. University of Pennsylvania. https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-akhenaten-temple-project-and-karnak-excavations/
This old article will tell you most of what you need to know about the Talatat. Unfortunately, it is reproduced in black and white on the site.
Books
Alas, books about the Amarna period tend to go out of date quickly in view of new excavations, both on the ground and in museums. Recent discoveries, such as the Tomb of the Royal Children, TT 40, Hourig Sourouzian's work at Kom el Heitan, and the town site of The Dazzling Aten on the West Bank, show how quickly excavations can change our view of history. Some books are, nevertheless, still worthwhile for specific information.
Monserrat, Dominic. 2000. Akhenaten: History, Fantasy and Ancient Egypt. London: Routledge. You may have had the pleasure of watching the late Dr. Monserrat in BBC videos. His writing was as stimulating and enjoyable as his conversation. This excellent book examines the attitudes of scholars and the public to Akhenaten and his world from the 1880s to modern times. Monserrat was an original thinker, free from the chauvinism and sexism that often mar older books. He asked the questions that have probably been lingering in the back of your mind. He describes and discusses many novels and other treatments of this complex era. The font was rather small, so bring your reading glasses.
Redford, Donald B. 1984. Akhenaten: the Heretic King. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. The late Dr. Redford was one of the chief excavators at Akhenaten's temples at East Karnak, and a leader in the study of Karnak talatat. He directed the Akhenaten Temple Project at the University of Toronto for many years. This book tells the story of the excavations at East Karnak, and describes the long years of work to make sense of the talatat. Though there are no colour plates, many of the drawings were developed into paintings in National Geographic. Among the many discoveries was the importance of Nefertiti as a powerful force in religion and politics. If you are seriously interested in Akhenaten and his age, this book is essential.
Redford and the Akhenaten Temple project also published detailed excavation reports of Akhenaten's temples at East Karnak as softcover books in the 1980s. These technical reports should be available in university and museum libraries.