Message #67394

[Bianca]

Like many ingenious solutions—and this age does seem to attract them—it didn't work.

For whatever reason, Nefertiti couldn't cut it as "king," not that there hadn't been wo-
man kings in Egypt who had taken male guise before. Hatshepsut, for instance, had por-
trayed herself as a man in more than one work of art (see above, Section 9).

Perhaps the army in this day would back an effeminate male but not a masculined woman
as king. Or perhaps Nefertiti was simply more beautiful than savvy.

Despite all their protestations of hope for world peace, beauty pageant winners rarely
achieve that aim.

In any case, the elusive Smenkhare disappears two years into "his" reign. No tomb for
Smenkhare has ever been located or looted or burial goods found. There is simply no
further mention of him at all in ancient Egyptian history.

Though it's pure speculation, it's hard to believe Smenkhare wasn't assassinated by
someone.

After all, he had so many enemies, probably far more than what few supporters he could
muster. Perhaps emissaries of the Amun priesthood did him in, or spies sent from an army
unwilling to be led by a woman—again!—or even by a disgusted daughter-husband in lea-
gue with some would-be-pharaoh, an actual man who was not her mother.

Or perhaps it was all of them in league together, and with this we are dangerously close
to writing the first draft of Murder on the Orient Express.