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This is the saga of the Hittite King Suppiluliumas, and rings with authenticity and the passion of a world that existed 1400 years before the birth of Christ. They called him Great King, Favorite of the Storm God, the Valiant. He conquered more than forty nations and brought fear and war to the very doorstep of 18th Dynasty Egypt, but he could not conquer the one woman he truly loved.

The mere mention of his name, Tutankhamun, brings to mind visions of gold and splendor and thoughts of a majestic kingdom. The reality of this king is something quite different. His fame has less to do with his position in history and nearly everything to do with the discovery of his tomb by Howard Carter in 1922. There are many questions and mysteries still surrounding this famous king of Egypt. Who was Tutankhamun? Where did he come from? What was his kingdom like? How did he live and die?

In the early 20th century, over 3,000 years after her death, Nefertiti became a household name and one of the most famous women of the ancient world. Egyptologists were aware that she was a queen of the New Kingdom Egypt during the later portion of the 18th dynasty, but she was little-known until the presentation of a reconstructed bust depicting her at the Berlin Museum in 1924. Nefertiti means "the beautiful one has come", and if the presented bust is anything to judge by she, was indeed a beautiful woman.

Perhaps no group was more surprised by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's swift and largely unopposed rise to power than the Brotherhood itself; for decades, the group had suffered a long history of severe oppression and internal crises, but in the political environment created by the Arab Spring, it only took less than two years for the Brotherhood to control the Egyptian government. As it turned out, it was Islamists who reaped the greatest advantages of the Arab Spring, not only in Egypt, but abroad as well.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, two ancient writers named Antipater of Sidon and Philo of Byzantium authored antiquity's most well-known tour guides. After the two Greeks had traveled around the Mediterranean, they wrote of what they considered to be the classical world's greatest construction projects. While there is still some question as to who actually authored the text attributed to Philo and Antipater at the time of its creation, their lists ended up comprising the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The Hittites are an ancient people who remain somewhat enigmatic, but their influence on the ancient Near East is undeniable. From high in their capital of Hattusa in central Anatolia, the Hittites were able to conquer and control a kingdom that roughly comprised the area of modern Turkey, Syria, and parts of Iraq and Lebanon through a combination of brute military force and shrewd diplomatic machinations.

The life story of Ramesses II is voluminously recorded and illustrated through documents and inscriptions, and it is even represented physically through his funerary goods and the well-preserved mummified remains of the man himself. But despite the resources available with which to reason about who Ramesses II was and what his impact might have been, there is also a necessary disconnection between him and those who chronicled his story.

Until about 200 years ago, the writing of the ancient Egyptians was an enigma to the world, but that changed when an ancient Egyptian monument known today as the Rosetta Stone was discovered (or rediscovered serendipitously) by French soldiers in Egypt in 1799. Now one of the most famous monuments in the world, the Rosetta Stone is a black granite stela that was inscribed with texts in Greek and two different scripts of the ancient Egyptian language: demotic and hieroglyphs.

The pyramids of Egypt are such recognizable symbols of antiquity that for millennia, people have made assumptions about what they are and why they exist without full consideration of the various meanings these ancient symbolic structures have had over the centuries. Generations have viewed them as symbols of a lost past, which in turn is often portrayed as a world full of romance and mystery.

Africa may have given rise to the first humans, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later.

The Pharaoh Akhenaten was one of the most enigmatic people in ancient Egyptian history. Perhaps even in all of history. Often referred to as the heretic King, Akhenaten changed everything about Egypt, from the way religion was practiced to the art. Perhaps the most striking change was the art. He was often depicted with odd physical characteristics. These characteristics were not just relegated to his statuary, but to Akhenaten and his family as well.

The Sea Peoples remain as mysterious as they were influential; while the Egyptians documented their presence and the wars against them, it has never been clear exactly where the Sea Peoples originated or what compelled them to invade various parts of the region with massive numbers. Whatever the reason, the Sea Peoples posed an existential threat to the people already living in the region, as noted by an Egyptian inscription.

While the pharaoh tries to conceal the disappearance of Queen Nefertari's sacred heart scarab, along with Shabaka's abduction, fears of a curse befall those travelling eastwards through the desert. Neti and Moses, during their investigation and search for Shabaka, uncover a sinister underground network in Thebes that have since the pharaoh's move to Pi-Ramesses resulted in numerous underhanded dealings. Here Neti has to come to terms with the life she, by chance, managed to escape.

Hatshepsut - the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne and a mother with ties to the previous dynasty - was born into a privileged position in the royal household, and she was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father's family. Her failure to produce a male heir was ultimately the twist of fate that paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king.

Renowned Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson leads us through space as much as time: From the river's mystical sources (the Blue Nile which rises in Ethiopia, and the White Nile coursing from majestic Lake Victoria); to Thebes, with its Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and Luxor Temple; the fertile Delta; Giza, home of the Great Pyramid, the sole surviving Wonder of the Ancient World; and finally, to the pulsating capital city of Cairo, where the Arab Spring erupted on the bridges over the Nile.

Incomplete sections of the book of dead found in Ramesses’ tomb and the murder of a prominent tomb scribe sparks fears of the curse of Anubis in Deir el-Medina. While the lack of witnesses and a close-knit worker community hampers, Neti-Kerty and Shabaka’s investigation at a time when the whole of Thebes awaits the arrival of the pharaoh for the beautiful festival of the valley. When Neti starts to experience strange sensations and the pharaoh’s life is endangered it becomes evident that there is a larger, more sinister scheme to the events...

Neti-Kerty's reputation as Egypt's first female mummifier has apparently reached all the way to the Pharaoh. Neti-Kerty and Shabaka, Special Investigator and Prefect of Thebes, are astonished to be summoned to the palace of Ramses II to investigate the sudden death of the Vizier Khay. Thanks to her powers of deduction and knowledge of the dead, Neti soon determines that something is amiss. As more people disappear during the investigation, the situation increasingly gets out of hands and before long Neti and Shabaka find themselves peering into the deepest recesses of the human soul.

Hatshepsut longs for power, but she is constrained by her commitment to maat - the sacred order of righteousness, the way things must be. Her mother claims Hatshepsut is destined for Egypt's throne - not as the king's chief wife, but as the king herself, despite her female body. But a woman on the throne defies maat, and even Hatshepsut is not so bold as to risk the safety of the Two Lands for her own ends.

Shabaka, the secretive Prefect, the Pharaoh’s special envoy charged with combating crime in the capital of the Pharaoh’s empire, also often makes use of Neti Kerty’s special talents. With her powers of deduction and knowledge of the dead, she has already helped solve many crimes.

6.12.1912, Amarna, Ägypten: Im Auftrag des Berliner Mäzens James Simon erforschen deutsche Archäologen im Winter 1912/13 Amarna, die Stadt des Pharaos Echnaton und seiner Frau Nofretete. Am Nikolaustag stoßen sie im Haus des Bildhauers Thutmose auf einen sensationellen Fund: Ein farbig gefasster Frauenkopf von außerordentlicher Schönheit und Qualität tritt ans Licht.