Aidan Dodson

One of those is labelled as the death of Mechitartan, who is the second daughter.

And then there are two more.

Unfortunately, they're too badly damaged, so we don't know... They're not labelled...

However, by approaches of elimination, they have to be the two youngest daughters, Neferneferu-Rei and Setepen-Rei, who are likely to only have been no older than five at the time of their deaths.

Mechitartan is probably perhaps ten when she dies.

parent will understand it's so human i think that's the thing about a lot of the of the art it is that that you see the king and queen operating as as parents you know both at this sort of

the worst time we've got here, but also in some of these other scenes where the children are shown playing on their laps.

There's an amazing painting now in Oxford from one of the palaces which shows all the various princesses lounging around on cushions at their parents' feet.

So...

That's one of the most attractive sides of the whole Amarna episode is the way is the humanity shown in the art, which in some ways then makes it even more jarring when, as we've been talking about, it appears that the workmen are dying of starvation.

The people who are building this vision are actually being treated probably worse than any other period of Egyptian history.

Which suggests to me something about Akhenaten's view of himself as being above everything.

It's certainly circumstantial.

And we know that within a decade of Akhenaten's death, there is certainly a major plague raging in the Hittite lands.

Given that we know that there is plague a bit later on, we've got this whole set of sudden deaths in Egypt only a year or so after half the known world has actually descended on Egypt.

So although we can't prove it, I think a good working hypothesis is that the people who came into Egypt to bring the diplomatic gifts and so on for the Durbar also brought with them

super spreaders.

The bacteria or virus which then becomes a major thing.

But also then what interestingly happens, if it's came in there, it's then re-exported again at the end of Tutankhamun's reign when the Hittite plague prayers

Say that the people who brought in the infection, which kills half the Hittite royal family actually came from Egypt.