14th cent. b.c

Nefertiti escapes the palace and the consequences of a false charge with two of her friends, but while she takes refuge in the hills along the west bank of the Nile, Nefertiti's desires to prove her innocence in front of the Pharaoh are shadowed by questions about long-held, sacred beliefs.

In 1351 B.C., Prince Amunhotep secretly kills his older brother and becomes next in line to Egypt's throne: he's 17, and the 15-year-old Nefertiti soon becomes his chief wife. He already has a wife, but Kiya's blood is not as royal, nor is she as bewitching as Nefertiti. As Mutnodjmet, two years younger than her sister, looks on (and falls in love), Amunhotep and the equally ambitious Nefertiti worship a different main god, displace the priests who control Egypt's wealth, and begin building a city that boasts the royal likenesses chiseled in stone.

Provides a detailed discussion of the life and role of Nefertiti, wife of heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, based upon both scholarly and archaeological evidence.

Tutmose, an apprentice sculptor, and his nearly-blind brother, Ibrim, an apprentice musician, are content at the court of Pharaoh Akhenaten, but their father rages against Pharaoh's rejection of traditional Egyptian gods and plots a deadly revenge.

The life of Nefertiti concentrating on the period during which her husband, Amenhetep IV, struggled to change the ancient forms of worship in Egypt from many gods to one, the sun god.