Andy Miller asked Bill Bevan:

How much have you drawn on your background as an archaeologist in the writing of this novel?

Bill Bevan Hi, and thank you for your question. I have drawn one my experience as an archaeologist, though not so much in a direct way because I have not excavated or surveyed in Egypt. What I have done is to take the understanding of ancient sites or site plans of monuments that an archaeologist has to help reconstruct and populate Luxor, Karnak and the Valley of the Kings at the time of Tutankhamun. This is something archaeologists do all the time as we imagine what a site would have been like, and how people inhabited and moved around a site.

However, I did not want to try and present an archaeological history as fiction, as I feel these can become turgid and bogged down in too much detail. After doing my research, I left the archaeologist behind and transformed into the storyteller.

What has helped immensely, has been to recall a holiday in the area and the sense of wonder we felt experiencing and exploring the various locations that feature in the book.

Thank you for your question and I hope this provides an answer.

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