For those wishing to study the Roman city in Egypt, the archaeological record is poorer than that of many other provinces. Yet the large number of surviving texts allows us to reconstruct the social lives of Egyptians to an extent undreamt of elsewhere. We are not, therefore, limited to a history of the public faces of cities, their inscriptions, and the writings of their elites, but can begin to understand what the transformations of the city meant for ordinary people, and to uncover the forces that shaped the everyday lives of city dwellers. After Egypt became part of the Roman Empire in 30 BC, Classical and then Christian influences both made their mark on the urban environment. This book examines the impact of these new cultures at every level of Egyptian society. The result is a new and fascinating insight into the creation of a specific urban society in the Roman Empire, as well as a case study for the model of urban development in antiquity.

This comprehensive treatment of Cleopatra and the political and social world in which she lived will be an indispensable resource for anyone interested in Cleopatra or in ancient Egypt. Laying bare the "injustice, the adverse partiality, of the attitude assumed by classical authors," the author offers the reader a new, more balanced look at the life of one of history's most important women. The book is divided into sections on Cleopatra and Caesar and Cleopatra and Antony and is supplemented by a number of maps and illustrations.

* Provides a short and simple, but entertaining, account of the prehistoric past from human origins to today from a global perspective in contrast to the current lengthy textbooks on the subject * Shows how such contemporary issues such as biological and cultural diversity, gender, and climate change have deep roots in the remote past and thus resonates with the concerns of readers * Short and low cost introductory text for students studying the subject for the first time from two experienced textbook writers

Published in the year 2006, Lost Pharaohs is a valuable contrubution to the field of History.

This informative publication is a continuation of the series documenting The Metropolitan Museum of Arts excavations at the Middle Kingdom Egyptian site at Lisht. This volume covers the relief decoration from three different locations or structures. These reliefs furnish a welcome addition to the little-known relief decoration of pyramid temples of the Middle Kingdom. Presenting previously unpublished materials and including informative, high quality photographs of the relief blocks, this essential resource preserves the decoration at this endangered historic site and makes substantial contributions to the study of Middle Kingdom Egypt. This sunptuously produced large-format volume includes 154 plates, some in colour.

The quartzite architectural block E16230 has been on display in the Penn Museum for 115 years. E16230 is one of the few large architectural pieces in the world surviving from the much-debated reign of the "heretic" king Akhenaten. This block is one of the most historically significant objects on display in the Egyptian galleries, yet it has never been analyzed or published. This volume addresses that glaring gap and provides for the first time a translation and discussion of the important texts on the object, along with analysis of the architectural evidence it provides. The block is part of the once intensely ornamented facade of a solar chapel ("sunshade") dedicated to princess Meritaten, the eldest daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. The large (1100 kg) block originates in a chapel that was part of a royal ceremonial palace of Akhenaten named Per-Waenre ("the house of the Unique-one-of-Re"). Later, after demolition of the building, the block was reused in the city of Heliopolis as the base for a sphinx of king Merenptah (Dynasty 19). Subsequently the block underwent a final stage of reuse in Cairo in the Islamic Period where it was found ca. 1898 in the Mousky district of central Cairo. Because the block is such a major architectural element it provides considerable detail in the reconstruction of the essential appearance, decoration, and other aspects of the Meritaten sunshade. The volume addresses the significance of the piece and the Meritaten sunshade in the context of Akhenaten's monumental program. Major implications emerge from the analysis of E16230 providing further evidence on the royal women during Akhenaten's reign. The book examines two possibilities for the original location of the Per-Waenre in which the Meritaten sunshade stood. It may be part of a large Amarna Period cult precinct at Heliopolis, which may, like the capital city at Tell el-Amarna, have born the wider name Akhet-Aten, "Horizon of the Aten." Alternatively it could derive from Tell el-Amarna itself, possibly belonging to a hitherto unidentified palatial complex at that site. The book is a contribution to the study of one of the most debated eras of ancient Egyptian history focused on this long-ignored treasure of the Penn Museum's Egyptian collection. University Museum Monograph, 144

According to Egyptian mythology, when the god Re cried, his tears turned into bees upon touching the ground. Beyond the realm of myth, the honey bee is a surprisingly common and significant motif in Egyptian history, playing a role in the mythology, medicine, art, and food of the ancient culture. In The Tears of Re: Beekeeping in Ancient Egypt, entomologist Gene Kritsky presents the first full-length discussion of the ways in which bees were a part of life in ancient Egypt, shedding light on one of the many mysteries of the ancient world. Kritsky delves into ancient Egypt's complex society, revealing that bees had a significant presence in everything from death rituals to trade. In fact, beekeeping was a state-controlled industry, and in certain instances honey could even be used to pay taxes! Honey was used both to sweeten foods and treat cuts, and was sometimes used as a tribute or offering. From the presence of bees in paintings and hieroglyphs in tombs to the use of beeswax in a variety of products, bees had a significant presence in ancient Egyptian culture. Richly illustrated and engagingly written, The Tears of Re will appeal to anyone with a passion for beekeeping, Egypt, or the ancient world.

Published in the year 2005, Everyday Life In Ancient Egypt is a valuable contribution to the field of Ancient Egyptian History.

This book is an impressive collection of some of the earliest literature still extant from the great Ancient Egyptian civilization. Much of the material contained in this work -- poems, narratives, songs and prayers -- was translated here and made accessible to lovers of antiquity for the first time. Covering a range of topics including schools, religion and love, the collected works here provide the reader with a deeper understanding of ancient life along the Nile.

When we consider the Cretans and Hittites, the powers of Babylonia and Assyria, and the internal conditions in Syria and Palestine, it can hardly be doubted that the reign of Akhetaten marks a turning point, notably in Egyptian history, but also in the wider history of the ancient world. Here the author vigorously reproduces this age, to show the intensely human interest that lies in the story of religion and art of decadence and reform.

The discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922 aroused unprecedented excitement in the field of Egyptology. In the tomb of a "colourless youth, who reigned for a few years only" were found unmatched riches, the study of which has led to numerous insights into ancient Egyptian civilization. The author of this fascinating text discusses the tomb's discovery, the significance of its discovery and contents, tomb-robbers, and the ethics of desecration.

First published in 2006. This delightful book written in 1892 by a founder of the National Trust is regarded as a classic of high Victorian travel writing. After three journeys to the East, Rawnsley decided that existing guide-books were not sufficiently explicit and set out to write this witty and informative account that reflects a highly likeable character to whom it is impossible not to warm. Beginning with observations such as 'everything can be got in Cairo except good English tea' and 'never expect your guide to know anything about Egyptian history or the monuments up the Nile', Rawnsley sets off to show us the best of Egypt during a golden age of exploration and touring, he visits the two egyptologists to whom he dedicates this book, joining Flinders Petrie at the Medum pyramid to observe the excavations, and talking to Emile Brugsch about the royal mummies which had been brought from their tombs to the Cairo Museum just a few years previously. In the ruins of Thebes and Luxor he is struck by what he calls 'the silence of the dead' which he contrasts with the obvious love of the ancient Egyptians for music, as shown in their art and in the many hymns preserved in papyri. Although the music itself has been lost, it seemed a pity to Rawnsley that the hymns, dirges, poems and wise sayings should remain unknown to the general reader because of their unmusical form. He presents a number of them here, translated and rendered into metre, a unique contribution that greatly enhances the enjoyment of Egypt at first hand or at a distance. The work concludes with what Rawnsley considers to be its most important part - the timeless wisdom embodied in the sayings of Ptah-hotep taken from the Prisse papyrus.

First published in 2007. Reading like a detective thriller involving the highest of stakes, this is the story of a discovery that is still to be fully realised one that has split the scholarly community worldwide and which may yet transform our understanding of two of the world's religious faiths. The manuscripts known collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls have been the subject of controversy ever since the discovery of the first texts in a cave in the Judean Desert at Khirbet Qumran in 197. The precise details of this find and the story of what happened to these manuscripts and many others found subsequently on other sites were shrouded in mystery, partly because some were uncovered during illegal explorations which destroyed important evidence of provenance and partly because it soon became apparent that the contents of the scrolls themselves were highly sensitive, consisting of religious texts, many previously unknown. Today there are several hundred documents and fragments that are considered Dead Sea Scrolls, Del Medico's classic work provides the best and clearest background to the continuing riddle of the scrolls.

Flint Trade in the Protohistoric Levant offers an in-depth case study of the production and exchange of tabular scrapers. Crossing cultural and ecological boundaries and traded from the desert to the settled zone, these tools encompassed both ritual and quotidian functions over the course of well over the two millennia of the existence of the exchange system. Analyses focus on the changing nature of the production systems, dynamics of value in changing contexts of production and use, ritual contexts and meaning. Extending throughout the Levant, the tabular scraper complex is compared and contrasted to other contemporary production and exchange systems (ceramics, chipped stone, ground stone, copper, beads), offering a rich picture of the complexities of late prehistoric trade, transcending linear evolutionary frameworks, and simple models. Adopting a chaine operatoire approach to the use-life of the artifacts, the artifacts can be seen to transform over time and place, made, used, recycled, and ultimately discarded, each stage in its own cultural contexts. The rise and decline of this exchange complex reflects both the geo-political history of the region and the general role of lithic industries in these societies. Focusing on late prehistoric times in the Near East, the discussions will of relevance to all researchers interested in the role of exchange in the evolution of complex economies. It offers an analysis of exchange systems based on a matrix of factors which should be of interest to all researchers interested in the evolution of trade.

Nearly two decades have passed since the last edition of Miroslav Verner's seminal The Pyramids. In that time, fresh explorations and new sophisticated technologies have contributed to ever more detailed and compelling discussions around Egypt's enigmatic and most celebrated of ancient monuments. A pyramid, as the posthumous residence of a king and the place of his eternal cult, was just a single, if dominant, part of a larger complex of structures with specific religious, economic, and administrative functions. The first royal pyramid in Egypt was built at the beginning of the Third Dynasty (ca. 2592-2544 BC) by Horus Netjerykhet, later called Djoser, while the last pyramid was the work of Ahmose I, the first king of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ca. 1539-1292 BC). This newly revised and updated edition of The Pyramids brings Verner's rich erudition and long years of site experience to bear on all the latest discoveries and archaeological and historical aspects of over 70 of Egypt's and Sudan's pyramids in the broader context of their more than one-thousand-year-long development. Lucidly written, with 300 illustrations, and filled with insights, this comprehensive study illuminates an era that is both millennia away and, thanks to the work of scientists like Verner, relevant today.

Ancient Civilizations offers a comprehensive and straightforward account of the world's first civilizations and how they were discovered, drawing on many avenues of inquiry including archaeological excavations, surveys, laboratory work, highly specialized scientific investigations, and both historical and ethnohistorical records. This book covers the earliest civilizations in Eurasia and the Americas, from Egypt and the Sumerians to the Indus Valley, Shang China, and the Maya. It also addresses subsequent developments in Southwest Asia, moving on to the first Aegean civilizations, Greece and Rome, the first states of sub-Saharan Africa, divine kings and empires in East and Southeast Asia, and the Aztec and Inka empires of Mesoamerica and the Andes. It includes a number of features to support student learning: a wealth of images, including several new illustrations; feature boxes which expand on key sites, finds, and written sources; and an extensive guide to further reading. With new perceptions of the origin and collapse of states, including a review of the issue of sustainability, this fifth edition has been extensively updated in the light of spectacular new discoveries and the latest theoretical advances. Examining the world's pre-industrial civilizations from a multidisciplinary perspective and offering a comparative analysis of the field which explores the connections between all civilizations around the world, this volume provides a unique introduction to pre-industrial civilizations in all their brilliant diversity. It will prove invaluable to students of Archaeology.

In this book, Sabine R. Huebner explores the world of the protagonists of the New Testament and the early Christians using the rich papyrological evidence from Roman Egypt. This gives us unparalleled insights into the everyday lives of the non-elite population in an area quite similar to neighboring Judaea-Palestine. What were the daily concerns and difficulties experienced by a carpenter's family or by a shepherd looking after his flocks? How did the average man or woman experience a Roman census? What obstacles did women living in a patriarchal society face in private, in public, and in the early Church? Given the flight of Jesus' family into Egypt, how mobile were the lower classes, what was their understanding of geography, and what costs and dangers were associated with travel? This volume gives a better understanding of the structural, social, and cultural conditions under which figures from the New Testament lived.

A spellbinding history of the hidden world below the Holy City—a saga of biblical treasures, intrepid explorers, and political upheaval.

In 1863, a French senator arrived in Jerusalem hoping to unearth relics dating to biblical times. Digging deep underground, he discovered an ancient grave that, he claimed, belonged to an Old Testament queen. News of his find ricocheted around the world, evoking awe and envy alike, and inspiring others to explore Jerusalem’s storied past.

In the century and a half since the Frenchman broke ground, Jerusalem has drawn a global cast of fortune seekers and missionaries, archaeologists and zealots, all of them eager to extract the biblical past from beneath the city’s streets and shrines. Their efforts have had profound effects, not only on our understanding of Jerusalem’s history, but on its hotly disputed present. The quest to retrieve ancient Jewish heritage has sparked bloody riots and thwarted international peace agreements. It has served as a cudgel, a way to stake a claim to the most contested city on the planet. Today, the earth below Jerusalem remains a battleground in the struggle to control the city above.

Under Jerusalem takes readers into the tombs, tunnels, and trenches of the Holy City. It brings to life the indelible characters who have investigated this subterranean landscape. With clarity and verve, acclaimed journalist Andrew Lawler reveals how their pursuit has not only defined the conflict over modern Jerusalem, but could provide a map for two peoples and three faiths to peacefully coexist.

The inside story, told by the archaeological detectives themselves, of the extraordinary discovery of the world's oldest papyri - revealing how King Khufu's men built the Great Pyramid at Giza. Pierre Tallet's discovery of the Red Sea Scrolls - the world's oldest surviving written documents - in 2013 was one of the most remarkable moments in the history of Egyptology. These papyri, written some 4,600 years ago, combined with Mark Lehner's research and theories, change what we thought we knew about the building of the Great Pyramid at Giza. Here, for the first time, Tallet and Lehner together give us the definitive account of this astounding discovery. The story begins with Tallet's hunt for hieroglyphic rock inscriptions in the Sinai Peninsula, leading up to the discovery of the papyri - the diary of Inspector Merer, who oversaw workers in the reign of Pharaoh Khufu - in Wadi el-Jarf, the site of an ancient harbour on the Red Sea. The translation of the papyri reveals for the first time exactly how the stones of the Great Pyramid were transported to Giza. Combined with Lehner's excavations of the recently unearthed harbour, the Red Sea Papyri have greatly advanced our understanding of how the ancient Egyptians were able to build monuments that survive to this day. Tallet and Lehner narrate this thrilling discovery and explore how the building of the pyramids helped create a unified state, propelling Egyptian civilization forward. This lavishly illustrated book captures the excitement and significance of these seminal findings, conveying above all how astonishing it is to discover a contemporary eye-witness testimony to the creation of the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World. With over 200 illustrations

Many of our religious beliefs are based upon faith alone, but archaeology gives us the opportunity to find evidence about what really happened in the past-evidence that can have a dramatic impact on what we believe and how we understand the Bible today. Archaeologist and rabbi Richard Freund takes readers through many of his own excavations in the Holy Land, searching for information about key biblical characters and events.

This collection employs a multi-disciplinary approach treating ancient childhood in a holistic manner according to diachronic, regional and thematic perspectives. This multi-disciplinary approach encompasses classical studies, Egyptology, ancient history and the broad spectrum of archaeology, including iconography and bioarchaeology. With a chronological range of the Bronze Age to Byzantium and regional coverage of Egypt, Greece, and Italy this is the largest survey of childhood yet undertaken for the ancient world. Within this chronological and regional framework both the social construction of childhood and the child's life experience are explored through the key topics of the definition of childhood, daily life, religion and ritual, death, and the information provided by bioarchaeology. No other volume to date provides such a comprehensive, systematic and cross-cultural study of childhood in the ancient Mediterranean world. In particular, its focus on the identification of society-specific definitions of childhood and the incorporation of the bioarchaeological perspective makes this work a unique and innovative study. Children in Antiquity provides an invaluable and unrivalled resource for anyone working on all aspects of the lives and deaths of children in the ancient Mediterranean world.

The discovery of ancient Egypt and the development of Egyptology are momentous events in intellectual and cultural history. The history of Egyptology is the story of the people, famous and obscure, who constructed the picture of ancient Egypt that we have today, recovered the Egyptian past while inventing it anew, and made a lost civilization comprehensible to generations of enchanted readers and viewers thousands of years later. This, the second of a three-volume survey of the history of Egyptology, explores the years 1881-1914, a period marked by the institutionalization of Egyptology amid an ever increasing pace of discovery and the opening of vast new vistas into the Egyptian past. Wonderful Things affirms that the history of ancient Egypt has proved continually fascinating, but it also demonstrates that the history of Egyptology is no less so. Only by understanding how Egyptology has developed can we truly understand ancient Egypt.

In this iconoclastic and provocative work, leading scholars Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman draw on recent archaeological research to present a dramatically revised portrait of ancient Israel and its neighbors. They argue that crucial evidence (or a telling lack of evidence) at digs in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon suggests that many of the most famous stories in the Bible -- the wanderings of the patriarchs, the Exodus from Egypt, Joshua's conquest of Canaan, and David and Solomon's vast empire -- reflect the world of the later authors rather than actual historical facts.

Challenging the fundamentalist readings of the scriptures and marshaling the latest archaeological evidence to support its new vision of ancient Israel, The Bible Unearthed offers a fascinating and controversial perspective on when and why the Bible was written and why it possesses such great spiritual and emotional power today.