A city of temples, royal palaces, civic offices and elite tombs, and simultaneously a city of small-scale mud-brick dwellings, Amarna was an 'urban village', where most of its citizens were only two or three steps removed in the social scale from the king himself.

Barry Kemp evokes the unique character of this famous capital, bringing to life its people, from Akhenaten, Nefertiti and the royal family to priests and craftsmen, in this brilliantly written and imaginatively conceived account of the mysterious Amarna interlude.