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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Although the literature of Ancient Egypt is comparatively poorly known compared to its art and architectural achievements, it has been the subject of intense study for almost 200 years, and constitutes one of the earliest literary traditions produced anywhere in the world. This book brings together work from many of the main researchers in the field of Ancient Egyptian literature, and reviews the numerous developments in the theoretical framework of interpretation more recently. The field of literary studies has witnessed a rapid development. The application of more theoretically informed approaches to the ancient literary corpus, and a more detailed analysis of context, form, and reception, have fundamentally challenged the interpretative paradigms that formerly held sway. These papers enable many of the foremost researchers in the field to examine the overall state of work on the subject. Beginning with contributions from scholars working in the literatures of other ancient cultures (Mesopotamian, Old Testament, Classical), the book covers a wide range of Ancient Egyptian uses of written culture, with contributions covering the Middle Egyptian, Late Egyptian, and Demotic language stages. There are also contributions touching on genre, performance, intertextuality, biography, monumental context, and reception. The papers demonstrate the broad range of approaches currently used in interpreting Ancient Egyptian texts, and attest to the ongoing vitality of this field of study.

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 generously illustrated selection of John Baines's influential writings on two core areas of ancient Egyptian civilization: the role of writing, which was very different in antiquity from what is familiar in the modern world, and the importance of visual culture. These questions are explored through a number of case studies. The volume assembles articles that were scattered in publications in a variety of disciplines, making available key contributions on core problems of theory, comparison, and analysis in the study of many civilizations and offering important points of departure for further research. Three wholly new essays are included, and the overall approach is an interdisciplinary one, synthesizing insights from archaeology, anthropology, and art history as well as Egyptology.

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.

Originally published in 1923, this book provides an exploration of Egyptian art. Drawing on environmental factors of the Egyptian region, architecture, history and Egyptian society, Capart also provides an insight into the psyche of the Egyptian artist.

This work examines Egyptian mummies as artifacts in pre - 1900 America - how they got here, what happened to them afterwards, and how they were perceived by the public and archaeologists. Collected newspaper accounts and other documents reveal the progression of American interest in mummies as curiosities, commodities, and cultural lessons. Numerous mummies which no longer exist are identified, and commentary on mummy coffins and discussion of methods of public exhibition are included.

This volume offers a detailed case study of the internationally acclaimed online programmes in Egyptology at the University of Manchester, UK. It distils over a decade of online teaching experience and student feedback, providing guidance for instructors developing their own online offerings. Today, many universities are actively encouraging their teaching staff towards the development of: * online programmes (programmes to be taught entirely online) and/or * online units (units to be incorporated into "blended" programmes taught partially online and partially face-to-face). Unfortunately, the staff tasked with the development of online learning rarely have access to the expertise that they need to help them utilise their teaching skills to their full potential. Technical assistance may be provided by the university e-learning department, but pedagogical and practical help - the support of colleagues with many years' experience teaching online - is lacking. Written by experts, the book provides an invaluable guide for those wishing - or being compelled - to establish their own online courses within the humanities.

In Isis in a Global Empire, Lindsey Mazurek explores the growing popularity of Egyptian gods and its impact on Greek identity in the Roman Empire. Bringing together archaeological, art historical, and textual evidence, she demonstrates how the diverse devotees of gods such as Isis and Sarapis considered Greek ethnicity in ways that differed significantly from those of the Greek male elites whose opinions have long shaped our understanding of Roman Greece. These ideas were expressed in various ways - sculptures of Egyptian deities rendered in a Greek style, hymns to Isis that grounded her in Greek geography and mythology, funerary portraits that depicted devotees dressed as Isis, and sanctuaries that used natural and artistic features to evoke stereotypes of the Nile. Mazurek's volume offers a fresh, material history of ancient globalization, one that highlights the role that religion played in the self-identification of provincial Romans and their place in the Mediterranean world.

* 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

This edited collection considers representations of ancient Egypt in the literature of the nineteenth-century. It addresses themes such as reanimated mummies, ancient Egyptian mythology and contemporary consumer culture across literary modes ranging from burlesque satire to historical novels, stage performances to Gothic fiction and popular culture to the highbrow. The book illuminates unknown sources of historical significance - including the first illustration of an ambulatory mummy - revising current understandings of the works of canonical writers and grounding its analysis firmly in a contemporary context. The contributors demonstrate the extensive range of cultural interest in ancient Egypt that flourished during Victoria's reign. At the same time, they use ancient Egypt to interrogate 'selfhood' and 'otherness', notions of race, imperialism, religion, gender and sexuality. -- .

A brilliant introduction to Egyptology, this book describes the mysterious story of the lost pharaohs. Lowered into a crevice thirty feet deep by the Priests of the Necropolis, the mummies of the lost pharaohs were undisturbed for three thousand years. Their discovery and its incredible impact on the field of Egyptology form just one episode of this fascinating book, which also covers the construction of the pyramids, the City of the Dead, and many other topics. Leonard Cottrell, author of numerous BBC radio documentaries on ancient Egypt, offers the general reader a story that is both entertaining and factual, ably conveying the romance and mystery which draw so many to the study of ancient Egypt.

Death, grief and funerary practices are central to any analysis of social, anthropological, artistic and religious worlds. However, cemeteries - the key conceptual and physical site for death - have rarely been the focus of archaeological research. 'Prioritizing Death and Society' examines the structure, organisation and significance of cemeteries in the Southern Levant, one of the key areas for both migration and settlement in both prehistory and antiquity. Spanning 6,000 years, from the Chalcolithic to the present day, 'Prioritizing Death and Society' presents new research to analyse the formation and regional variation in cemeteries. By examining both ancient and present-day - nationally Jewish - cemeteries, the study reveals the commonalities and differences in the ways in which death has been and continues to be ritualised, memorialised and understood.

In the 6th century BCE, Jerusalem and Judea were destroyed by the Babylonians. This traumatic event created the need to construct and articulate a comprehensive past that would give meaningful context to the identity of the Israelites. New modes of communal organization and worship during this period formed the foundation of Second Temple Jerusalem and early Christianity. Readers will be able to revisit familiar Bible stories and reach a better understanding of these events through the lens of modern archaeology. Archaeology and the Biblical Record challenges traditional views of the scripture while respecting the religious sensitivities of the reader. This bold text invites both Jewish and Christian biblical scholars to rethink basic assumptions and reformulate their instructional methods. Accessible and concise, this fresh look at Bible history is written for teachers, members of the clergy, and general readers, providing answers to the many historical dilemmas confronted in the course of studying the Bible. Please visit www.factorfictionthebible.com for more information.

Written by one of the most respected Egyptologists ever known, this remarkable work is at the same time original research in a previously neglected area of study, an account of an archeological survey and its methods, and a fascinating and illuminating discourse on the policies of the region of the time. No work or writer has addressed the issues of Egyptian ambition and the events of which took place in Palestine so cogently. Palestine, a fought-over land even at that time, inhabited by various tribal groups as it was, its history and its archeological remains are discussed "on the spot," both in relation to the finds of the expeditions, known historical events, and accounts taken from the Bible, particularly the accounts of Exodus.

This book presents a new analysis of the organization, structure and changes of the pharaonic state through three millennia of its history. Moreno Garcia sheds new light on this topic by bringing to bear recent developments in state theory and archaeology, especially comparative study of the structure of ancient states and empires. The role played by pharaonic Egypt in new studies often reiterates old views about the stability, conservatism and 'exceptionalism' of Egyptian kingship, which supposedly remained the same across the Bronze and Iron Ages. Ancient Egypt shared many parallels with other Bronze and Iron Age societies as can be shown by an analysis of the structure of the state, of the limits of royal power, of the authority of local but neglected micro-powers (such as provincial potentates and wealthy non-elite), and of the circulation and control of wealth. Furthermore, Egypt experienced deep changes in its social, economic, political and territorial organization during its history, thus making the land of the pharaohs an ideal arena in which to test applications of models of governments and to define the dynamics that rule societies on the longue duree. When seen through these new perspectives, the pharaonic monarchies appear less exceptional than previously thought, and more dependent on the balance of power, on their capacity to control the kingdom's resources and on the changing geopolitical conditions of their time.

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.