The Boy Behind the Mask: Meeting the Real Tutankhamun [Hardcover]

Charlotte Booth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 2007

The name Tutankhamun conjures up images of gold treasure, a secret tomb, an ancient curse, and a life surrounded by rumour and mystery. What caused his sudden death? Why was the tomb hastily closed? And while alive, what was his relationship with loved ones and allies? Personal items and photographs of Howard Carter's finds - available here for the first time for the general public - breathe brilliant new life into an iconic king.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Boy Behind the Mask remains a readable and wide-ranging book - and one that will surely help to introduce a new generation to the fascination of King Tut." -- Times Higher Educational Supplement

"The end of the Eighteenth Dynasty is, and will no doubt remain, of huge interest and this volume is a useful contribution to our understanding of the period." -- Ancient Egypt

"This key book provides an amazing insight into a boy, and his life and times." -- The Good Book Guide, December, 2007

About the Author

Charlotte Booth teaches Egyptology at Birkbeck College in London and is a freelance Etyptologist. She has written numerous articles, and her published books include People of Ancient Egypt (Tempus Press, 2005). She currently resides in Essex, UK.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Oneworld (September 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1851685448
• ISBN-13: 978-1851685448
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,566,908 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Useful Biography, June 7, 2008

By 

Michael Gunther (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Boy Behind the Mask: Meeting the Real Tutankhamun (Hardcover)

Charlotte Booth's new biography of King Tut is, necessarily, brief: we know in fact very little about this king, other than the extraordinary contents of his tomb. Given that unavoidable limitation, Booth has done a good job of setting out the things we do know (including information from the 2005 CT-scan of Tut's mummy). She emphasizes the importance of the teenage pharaoh's reign in returning the land of Egypt to normality following Akhhenaten's death, and even offers a few tentative but plausible hints about the boy-king's personality: he probably loved hunting (based on the chariots and other equipment that he owned); felt affection for his grandmother Tiye and other family members (having preserved a lock of her hair, and other family heirlooms, in his tomb); and he may even have been something of an intellectual (he was buried with four scribal kits, and is known to have restored an astronomical instrument belonging to his ancestor Amenhotep III).

Theories about various disputed or unknown aspects of Tutankhamun's life, including his parentage and the cause of his early death, are ably summarized by the author without going into excessive detail. There are a few minor problems in the book - typos, inconsistent spellings, a misattribution of the Red Crown to Upper Egypt (!), etc. Some of the black and white photographs are poorly reproduced. Otherwise, this short but readable book, while breaking no new ground in Tutankhamun studies, is quite an able summary of what we currently know, or can reasonably infer, about his life.