I am only reluctantly clicking the like button here, Hanna. I'm clicking it because it's another excellently written story from you. Seriously very good.
I'm reluctant because I am an avowed Atenist and I'm aware of all the propaganda levelled against Akhenaten, Nefertiti and so on. Likewise I'm aware of the fate which awaited the real Akhesenaten. I won't ramble on about it. But throughout this story, armed with my in depth knowledge of the Amarna period, I was hoping Peter, as a true ancient Egyptian, would listen to her and return the hand. Alas, no. Just like at the end of the Amarna period, the bad guys won.
Still, it is a great story and would make a great Hammer Horror adaptation. So you still get a like!
Oh—this is completely fictional! Don't worry about that 😂 I'm not challenging anyone's beliefs about that gang. It was more a comment about men vs gods and how the gods don't care, because they win every time.
Peter didn't do what he could because Peter had lost that whole maternal line of ancestry, leaving him confused. Does that make sense?
Makes sense, yes! Peter sort of losing a part of his ancestry. Perhaps by being taken to England, sort of like Greystoke.
It's a very well thought out story, and does have that theme of hubris going through it, like bad guys getting their comeuppance for disrespecting the gods. I do approve of that. Ironically this is one reason why I'm an Atenist and a socialist - what Akhenaten was really doing was taking back control from a priesthood/establishment that had become corrupt, and attempting to re-teach the people the true nature of ancient Egyptian spirituality. Unfortunately, as is often the case, the 'Establishment' at the time won through. The historical timeline is that Tutankhaten was murdered aged 18, at which point his wife/sister Ankhesenaten sent for a prince of Mitanni to be her new husband (and diplomatic alliance) but he was intercepted and murdered at the border. That's pretty much when she disappears from history. There's definitely a story there, and I think it's about time I wrote some historical fiction!
I really liked the little epilogue as well - that was lovingly done. As you say, Peter sort of forgetting the whole thing. And Benyon having the kind of tragic death suffered by millions of innocent young men ('the flower of England') during that 'war to start a new century of wars'.
Both of them are really great characters and I'd love to read more about their lives after this formative incident (it would be especially tragic knowing what happens to Benyon in the end - like, the reader wanting it not to happen but it's inevitable, which is the essence of tragedy). That would make a great novel (and movie adaptation for that matter - kind of like a postmodern Brideshead; mind you I've often got movies on the brain, it's a Katrina thing).
Exactly. Part of me is really uncomfortable with Egyptology having originated in the parlour rooms of aristocrats. Part of me hates that the mummies and treasures are here and in other museums, because that's someone's corpse, or organs? I know the tombs were raided well before the Caliphs of the East of the Commanders of the West got there, but the whole thing is messy. The narrative has been written by those who had discovered, not inherited. I found it very, very interesting that she vanished from the records.
There's an awful lot to play with, yes. It's a bit like how Tudor propaganda stopped us from really getting to know what happened to the house of York. Almost erased from history.
Yes!!! And yes again!!! This has been one of my own little bugbears for a while now. Partly because medieval social history was my best subject at school, I was easily top of my class (according to my teacher) and at one point I was on my way to studying it at Cambridge, before I had my first big mental breakdown (aged 17 - you can probably get a lot of that from some of my poetry).
One of the aspects that always bugged me was that it should have been blindingly obvious to historians that the account of Richard III was written 'by the victors'. It was blatant propaganda. Likewise, the historical record clearly shows how that despotic psychopath Henry Tudor (VII) essentially murdered Richard's entire gene pool. The irony is that Richard, in even just 2 years, was immediately doing genuinely benevolent things for the English people. Of course the Establishment couldn't have that so they did their coup d'Etat. If Richard had won, we would be seeing him as one of the country's greatest rulers. Obviously Shakespeare had to base his play on Thomas More's propaganda narrative, and unfortunately that's stuck. Even today you have a few historians sticking with this narrative. I guess they can't really allow students to understand all of this as propaganda because otherwise they'll put two and two together and apply that to the modern day!
And equally this applies to the Victorians like you say, in which all their academic output by definition has to somehow justify their awful social attitudes - with the misogyny alone we are still suffering from that. Then there's the awful version of psychology which was born at that time - I've been meaning to write an article about that for while now. But it's certainly true that when it comes to some academic ideas we do need to think in terms of social history, and understand how legacies persist.
It's such a shame I never got to go to Cambridge. I could've contributed so much good.
I am only reluctantly clicking the like button here, Hanna. I'm clicking it because it's another excellently written story from you. Seriously very good.
I'm reluctant because I am an avowed Atenist and I'm aware of all the propaganda levelled against Akhenaten, Nefertiti and so on. Likewise I'm aware of the fate which awaited the real Akhesenaten. I won't ramble on about it. But throughout this story, armed with my in depth knowledge of the Amarna period, I was hoping Peter, as a true ancient Egyptian, would listen to her and return the hand. Alas, no. Just like at the end of the Amarna period, the bad guys won.
Still, it is a great story and would make a great Hammer Horror adaptation. So you still get a like!
Oh—this is completely fictional! Don't worry about that 😂 I'm not challenging anyone's beliefs about that gang. It was more a comment about men vs gods and how the gods don't care, because they win every time.
Peter didn't do what he could because Peter had lost that whole maternal line of ancestry, leaving him confused. Does that make sense?
Makes sense, yes! Peter sort of losing a part of his ancestry. Perhaps by being taken to England, sort of like Greystoke.
It's a very well thought out story, and does have that theme of hubris going through it, like bad guys getting their comeuppance for disrespecting the gods. I do approve of that. Ironically this is one reason why I'm an Atenist and a socialist - what Akhenaten was really doing was taking back control from a priesthood/establishment that had become corrupt, and attempting to re-teach the people the true nature of ancient Egyptian spirituality. Unfortunately, as is often the case, the 'Establishment' at the time won through. The historical timeline is that Tutankhaten was murdered aged 18, at which point his wife/sister Ankhesenaten sent for a prince of Mitanni to be her new husband (and diplomatic alliance) but he was intercepted and murdered at the border. That's pretty much when she disappears from history. There's definitely a story there, and I think it's about time I wrote some historical fiction!
I really liked the little epilogue as well - that was lovingly done. As you say, Peter sort of forgetting the whole thing. And Benyon having the kind of tragic death suffered by millions of innocent young men ('the flower of England') during that 'war to start a new century of wars'.
Both of them are really great characters and I'd love to read more about their lives after this formative incident (it would be especially tragic knowing what happens to Benyon in the end - like, the reader wanting it not to happen but it's inevitable, which is the essence of tragedy). That would make a great novel (and movie adaptation for that matter - kind of like a postmodern Brideshead; mind you I've often got movies on the brain, it's a Katrina thing).
Exactly. Part of me is really uncomfortable with Egyptology having originated in the parlour rooms of aristocrats. Part of me hates that the mummies and treasures are here and in other museums, because that's someone's corpse, or organs? I know the tombs were raided well before the Caliphs of the East of the Commanders of the West got there, but the whole thing is messy. The narrative has been written by those who had discovered, not inherited. I found it very, very interesting that she vanished from the records.
I couldn’t agree more! With everything you say. Those Victorian men have a lot to answer for…
There is simply so much wealth of material to write about here isn’t there!
There's an awful lot to play with, yes. It's a bit like how Tudor propaganda stopped us from really getting to know what happened to the house of York. Almost erased from history.
Yes!!! And yes again!!! This has been one of my own little bugbears for a while now. Partly because medieval social history was my best subject at school, I was easily top of my class (according to my teacher) and at one point I was on my way to studying it at Cambridge, before I had my first big mental breakdown (aged 17 - you can probably get a lot of that from some of my poetry).
One of the aspects that always bugged me was that it should have been blindingly obvious to historians that the account of Richard III was written 'by the victors'. It was blatant propaganda. Likewise, the historical record clearly shows how that despotic psychopath Henry Tudor (VII) essentially murdered Richard's entire gene pool. The irony is that Richard, in even just 2 years, was immediately doing genuinely benevolent things for the English people. Of course the Establishment couldn't have that so they did their coup d'Etat. If Richard had won, we would be seeing him as one of the country's greatest rulers. Obviously Shakespeare had to base his play on Thomas More's propaganda narrative, and unfortunately that's stuck. Even today you have a few historians sticking with this narrative. I guess they can't really allow students to understand all of this as propaganda because otherwise they'll put two and two together and apply that to the modern day!
And equally this applies to the Victorians like you say, in which all their academic output by definition has to somehow justify their awful social attitudes - with the misogyny alone we are still suffering from that. Then there's the awful version of psychology which was born at that time - I've been meaning to write an article about that for while now. But it's certainly true that when it comes to some academic ideas we do need to think in terms of social history, and understand how legacies persist.
It's such a shame I never got to go to Cambridge. I could've contributed so much good.
A fitting end for those who meddle in things they don't understand.