When is this story taking place?
The Egyptians did not have a dating system in which years were counted from a fixed point.
Instead, each king started with year 1 when he came to the throne. This means
that we have to add up the lengths of the successive reigns in order to arrive at a date which
corresponds with our system (only the dates are BC, "before Christ", or BCE "before the
Christian
era").
But because all the details of Egyptian kings are not known, there are problems
and the dates which you will find quoted by different authors may differ quite a lot.
This story takes place in the last year of the reign of king Tutankhamun, in 1327 BC
(so nearly 3300 years ago!). The kings who preceded Tutankhamun on the Egyptian throne
were:
his grandfather Amenhotep III: 1391-1353 BC
his father Akhenaten, called Amenhotep at the beginning of his reign so
Amenhotep IV: 1353-1337 BC
his brother or half-brother (their father had several wives and so their mothers
may have been different) Smenkhkare: 1338-1336 BC.
Tutankhamun became king in 1336 BC.
Back to the story.