Golden King, The

Tutankhamun has mesmerized the world ever since Howard Carter's dramatic discovery of his treasure-filled tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, a fascination fanned anew by the current world tour of the spectacular artifacts buried with him, a priceless trove that casts a spell on everyone who sees them.

In this richly illustrated book, Egypt's leading archaeologist chronicles the Boy King and the royal dynasty that bred him. And what a dynasty! Tut's grandfather, the Sun King Amenhotep III, married queen Tiye before they reached their teens, then ruled for 40 years. Their heretical son, Akhenaten, abandoned Egypt's pantheon to worship a single god; his wife Nefertiti is still remembered as one of history's legendary beauties. Tutankhamun ascended the throne as a child and died before the age of twenty, but the splendor of his brief reign and the sensational unearthing of his tomb have made him the most famous of all the pharaohs.

Zahi Hawass brings these fabled figures and their tumultuous, astonishing age to life, with an authoritative text highlighted by scores of stunning photographs, including archival images from the first great era of Egyptian archaeology, when Carter and other Westerners reawakened the world to the golden glory of the ancient civilization explored in this dazzling book. | Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo, has been excavating in Egypt for more than thirty years. In addition to many scholarly publications, he is the author of several popular bestsellers including Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs (National Geographic, 2005), a companion to the blockbuster exhibition of Tut artifacts currently touring the United States.