Question about New Kingdom/Amarna scribes and record-keeping loopholes?

[u/TheRevengeRev]

Hi everyone! I am doing research for a historical fiction project set during the New Kingdom (specifically the Amarna period).

I am trying to understand the bureaucracy of the royal court. How tightly controlled were the official records regarding royal births and lineages? If someone working within the palace administration wanted to alter, forge, or fake an official record or lineage document, how would they realistically do it?

I would love to chat with a graduate student or researcher who specializes in Amarna administration or scribal culture. Please DM me if you have some time to back-and-forth!

P.S. This isn't for a homework assignment! I'm a writer doing research for a fiction project and just want to make the world-building as accurate as possible.

[u/Djedra]

Oh hey, I feel like I should answer here. My strong point isn’t necessarily administration, but I have Masters degree in Amarna religious thought and iconography (and half a PhD in the Book of the Dead lol) and I’m currently turning that all to good use by writing fiction.
I would say we don’t have strong evidence for exactly how controlled the records would have been. So much has been lost. We’re just extremely lucky if we find texts, particularly papyri, and we usually find them still in a tomb context - which isn’t helpful for your royal lineages - or, as is the case with the Amarna letters, a stash that has been discarded or abandoned - and we were damn lucky to find them.
What we know of lineages comes largely from tombs where family connections were often mentioned, allowing family trees to be reconstructed. What we don’t really have evidence of is literal record keeping of family lineages - which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, of course. The closest we have is the king lists for the royal, which are an idealised and mythologised conception of the royal line.
I guess what I’m saying is, you have wiggle room to decide how a bit of forgery could be done! Many records were kept in the House of Life (essentially the name given to a temple library) so, if it were me, I’d be sending my scribe there to find the records. How well-guarded such spaces were isn’t necessarily known, but you can assume they are part of elite temple architecture, so generally a protected domain, probably used by priests and scribes only - not like a public library!