The Serpent on the Crown
Encyclopedia
The Serpent on the Crown is the 17th in a series of mystery novels, written by Elizabeth Peters and featuring fictional sleuth and archaeologist Amelia Peabody
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Ramses, meanwhile, finds a papyrus which he suspects to be of historic importance, and an assistant who is not all he seems.
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Amelia Peabody
Amelia Peabody Emerson is the protagonist of the Amelia Peabody series, a series of mystery novels, written by author Elizabeth Peters. Peabody is married to Egyptologist Radcliffe Emerson and has one biological child, Walter "Ramses" Peabody Emerson, who provides a parallel voice in many of the...
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Plot summary
In 1922, the Emersons are excavating at Deir el Medina when a melodramatic visitor delivers a challenge—and a solid gold ancient statuette—to them: find out where it came from and why it brings bad luck to its owners. Emerson, of course, doesn't believe in curses, but he does believe someone has robbed a find of historic proportions. When their visitor turns up dead and her stepchildren disappear, everyone except the Emersons believe the murder is a family affair.Ramses, meanwhile, finds a papyrus which he suspects to be of historic importance, and an assistant who is not all he seems.
Title
The book's title is from the Poetical Stela of Thutmose IIIThutmose III
Thutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first twenty-two years of Thutmose's reign he was co-regent with his stepmother, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh...
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- "I have robbed their nostrils of the breath of life and made the dread of you fill their hearts. My serpent on your brow consumed them."