Around the turn of the last century, James Henry Breasted took on
the challenge of assembling all the available historical documents
of ancient Egypt and translating them into English. This prodigious
undertaking involved traveling to the monuments extant in the Nile
valley and in outlying areas of Egyptian conquest, as well as to
museums throughout Europe where Egyptian relics were housed.
Breasted made his own copies of hundreds of Egyptian records
inscribed on papyrus or leather or carved in stone and engaged in a
thorough study of the published records of Egyptian history in
conjunction with his own transcription of the documents themselves.
This five-volume compendium is the result. Breasted's monumental
work, originally published from 1906 to 1907, encompasses
twenty-six dynasties spanning more than three millennia: from ca.
3050 B.C. to 525 B.C. For each document, Breasted provides
information on location, condition, historical significance, and
content. Beginning with the earliest known official annals of
Egypt, the Palermo Stone, Breasted catalogs the realm's official
activities, including royal succession, temple construction,
property distribution, and foreign conquest. He tracks the careers
of scores of kings, queens, government officials, military leaders,
powerful statesmen, and influential courtiers, reproducing their
autobiographies, letters of favor, paeans, mortuary gifts, and tomb
inscriptions. Clearly annotated for the lay reader, the documents
provide copious evidence of trade relations, construction
activities, diplomatic envoys, foreign expeditions, and other
aspects of a vigorous, highly organized, and centrally controlled
society. Breasted's commentary is both rigorously documented and
accessible, suffused with a contagious fascination for the events,
the personalities, the cultural practices, and the sophistication
these records indicate. A herculean assemblage of primary
documents, many of which have deteriorated to illegibility in the
intervening century, Ancient Records of Egypt illuminates both the
incredible complexity of Egyptian society and the almost
insuperable difficulties of reconstructing a lost civilization.
This first paperback edition of Ancient Records of Egypt features a
new introduction and supplementary bibliographies by Peter A.
Piccione. Setting Breasted's work in the context of the development
of American Egyptology, Piccione discusses Breasted's establishment
of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, with
corporate support by John D. Rockefeller and other benefactors, and
surveys the ambitious body of publications with which Breasted laid
the foundation for future Egyptian studies.
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