Oedipus and Akhnaton: Myth and History- The Tragic Events in the Life of the Royal House of the Hundred-Gated Thebes

Was Oedipus, the parricide who sired children by his mother, a product of the subconscious mind as Freud thought? Was he a mythological figure? Or was he a real, historical person? Such questions have provoked interest among historians and authors for centuries. In Oedipus and Akhnaton, Immanuel Velikovsky identifies the scene and all the personages of the Greek Oedipus legend with the life patterns of the family of the Egyptian King Akhnaton, reputedly the first monotheist during the most famous famous period of Egyptian history. As a feat in unraveling myth, lore, and fact, Immanuel Velikovsky's startling new approach can be likened to the evidence of Schliemann's discovery of the Minoan civilization, or the deciphering of Mycenean. The legend of the Oedipus cycle, in which Dr. Velikovsky finds a parallel to the House of Akhnaton, involves the family of Oedipus, King of Thebes - his blinding and exile, his curse on his sons who subsequently slew each other at the gates of Thebes, and the courage of his daughter, Antigone, who entombed her fallen brother despite contrary official decree and was herself immured in a pit-tomb as punishment. This tale, filled with suspense, becomes even more compelling as it is related to historical fact.