Tutankahmunby Zahi Hawass
School Library Journal
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Starred Review. Gr 3-7–Hawass, director of excavations at the Giza pyramids and head of Egypt's archaeological council, turns his attention to a perennial topic of curiosity. Combining scholarship and personality, he nimbly offers a solid summary, some of it necessarily conjectural, of the complex and controversial 18th dynasty in which Tut lived and avoids â??dry historyâ?? by interjecting himself at times into the story. He recalls, for example, the beginnings of his own fascination with his country's history and surmises how Tut and his young wife might have felt at various times in their lives. Likewise, he examines the theory that Tut was murdered, including his own part in a CT scan of the king's mummy in early 2005 and concluding that the evidence points away from murder. The up-to-date nature of Hawass's text will not long matter, of course, but the accompanying photographs are timeless. Black-and-white shots from the past join rich color photographs that almost glow. Especially marvelous is a stunning re-creation, employing current reconstructive techniques, of what Tut might have looked like. If Hawass's style occasionally seems intrusive, this is a minor quibble in what is primarily a first-rate investigation enriched by beautiful artwork.–Coop Renner, Hillside Elementary, El Paso, TX Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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