[Bookpossum]

I am about two-thirds of the way through the book and am enjoying this way of asking "What is the truth?" about a person or a situation. Reminiscent of that famous Japanese film Rashomon.

Anyway, I dug out an antique textbook called Egypt of the Pharaohs by Sir Alan Gardiner (not quite on papyrus, but almost) and thought you might be interested in a couple of things I found.

Firstly, the last of the Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty, starting with Akhenaten, and using the spellings in the list:

Amenophis IV - Akhenaten 17 years' reign 1367-1350
Smenkhkare 3 years 1350-1347
Tutankhaten - Tutankhamun 9 years 1347-1339
Ay 4 years 1339-1335
Haremhab 27 years? 1335-1308?

So as you can see, a couple of the cast of characters went on to become Pharaohs themselves.

Second, this is a quote from a large stele erected by Tutankhamun, which says in part:

When His Majesty arose as king, the temples of the gods and goddesses, beginning from Elephantine down to the marshes of the Delta had fallen into decay, their shrines had fallen into desolation and become ruins overgrown with weeds, their chapels as though they had never been and their halls serving as footpaths. The land was topsy-turvy and the gods turned their backs on this land. If messengers were sent to Djahi (Syria) to extend the boundaries of Egypt, they had no success. If one humbled oneself to a god to ask a thing from him, he did not come, and if prayer was made to a goddess, likewise she never came ... But after many days My Majesty arose upon the seat of his father and ruled over the territories of Horus, the Black Land and the Red Land being under his supervision.

This is no doubt the official version (i.e. that of the priests) of how everything went to pot under the rule of The Heretic.