Tea at Trianon: Unraveling the Radiant Child of Amarna

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, April 1, 2022

Unraveling the Radiant Child of Amarna

From Ancient Origins:

Ever since the discovery of KV62, the treasure-filled sepulcher of Tutankhamun, in 1922 – and even before that in 1907 when the mysterious Tomb 55 came to light – Amarna royals have always managed to make headlines globally. The search for the final resting place of Nefertiti captured the imagination of the public in 2015, but no headway has been made on that count yet. Just when the spirits of Egyptological scholars and enthusiasts began to wane, out of the blue, Ankhesenpaaten /Ankhesenamun, the third of six daughters born to the Pharaoh Akhenaten and his iconic queen, has suddenly become the center of attraction in recent times; thanks to archeologists holding out the hope of finding her burial.
Of late, the Western Valley, also known as the Valley of the Monkeys, has grabbed the spotlight from its more renowned counterpart, the central Valley of the Kings. While the latter location in the eastern wing of the pharaonic necropolis has been the cynosure of all eyes for well over a century, owing to the wealth of burials of rulers and nobles found there, the Western Valley has thus far been largely ignored. It is generally assumed that this site is mostly devoid of tombs, because, apart from those of Amenhotep III (WV22), Aye (WV23), and the uninscribed and unfinished WV25 — which is purported to have been the beginnings of Akhenaten’s crypt while he ruled from Thebes at the start of his reign — no other burials have surfaced here. (Read more.)