A scientific approach to the study of ancient Egyptian mummies.…
REVIEW BY CAMPBELL PRICE Many readers may remember the documentaries made for British television on Egyptian subjects by John Romer in the 1980s and 1990s. I vividly recall his impassioned delivery, which struck my schoolboy imagination as something different from most other commentators. The present volume is perhaps the most…
REVIEW BY SG This is the first of three planned books on the last of Egypt’s dynasties, written not by an Egyptologist, but by a specialist in Classical and Hellenistic Greek history. This initial volume, covering the reigns of the first two Ptolemies, focuses more on military activities across the…
Do you recognise this place?…
REVIEW BY HILARY WILSON This collection of papers from a 2019 Cairo conference represents current research into the life of women in ancient Egypt. By applying contemporary social values and gender assumptions, late 19th- and early 20th-century scholarship tended to omit women from historical investigation. Evidence for female participation in…
REVIEW BY TANEASH SIDPURA The objects from Ahhotep’s burial at Dra Abu el-Naga, dating to the Eighteenth Dynasty, are a fascinating assemblage of mostly gold and other expensive materials, and are certainly worthy of further study. However, rather than being a catalogue of the objects as the title might suggest,…
REVIEW BY JPP Colin Reader is a geologist who has combined his professional knowledge with his passion for Egyptology to produce a fascinating geological history of the country. The title of his book derives from Herodotus’ assertion that the ancient Egyptian civilisation was ‘a gift of the river [Nile]’. Reader…
REVIEW BY ANNA GARNETT Studies of the ancient Nile Valley have traditionally focused on Egypt as the predominant political and cultural power in the region, with relatively limited work in the Upper Nile region (until the construction of the Aswan High Dam and the associated Nubian Rescue Campaign in the…
In AE 135, Karl Harris described a visit he made as an independent traveller to a small temple at Elkab, south of Luxor. He now travels north to Abydos, and onwards to Akhmim, where he visits some tombs that few tourists have yet seen.…
Do you recognise this object?…
Your thoughts on issues raised by the magazine.…
Andrew Fulton investigates the ancient Egyptian myth that tells how humanity
was saved by red-coloured beer.…
Visitors to stately homes and minor museums will frequently come across isolated ancient Egyptian artefacts with little or no explanation of their provenance.…
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones begins a new series exploring the lives and legacies of the Cleopatras of Egypt.…
In the second of his series focusing on remarkable people of their period, Wolfram Grajetzki introduces us to an important official whose tomb has recently been discovered.…
Following his articles in AE 127 and AE 135 exploring Predynastic sites in Egypt’s Western Desert, Julian Heath now looks at archaeological evidence for occupation of the Nile Delta during the Late Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods…
REVIEW BY ROGER FORSHAW The 21st annual Current Research in Egyptology (CRE) conference was held online by the Department of Mediterranean Studies of the University of the Aegean (Rhodes, Greece) in May 2021, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the formal establishment of Egyptology in Greece. The symposium hosted more…
REVIEW BY ROGER FORSHAW This brief book by W Benson Harer discusses the controversial question of what caused the death of Tutankhamun, with the author strongly supporting the view that the king was killed by a hippopotamus. Within the publication is a chapter by Peter Sheldrick, a physician who has…
REVIEW BY JPP This relatively slim volume (with only 109 pages) is full of insightful analysis, tracing the development of architecture throughout the entire span of ancient Egyptian civilisation, from the Predynastic Period to the Graeco-Roman era. The author has selected 15 examples of buildings to illustrate major changesin architectural…
REVIEW BY CATHIE BRYAN Harvard-based Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian examines the life, career, and legacy of George Reisner (1867-1942), and considers his place in Egyptological and archaeological history. He argues that Reisner’s contribution ‘cannot be overstated’, and is not sufficiently acknowledged in discussions of the ‘founding figures’ of archaeology. This…
REVIEW BY BOB BRIER With all the Tutankhamun books published for the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the tomb, it is reasonable to wonder if there is really anything new to say. The Earl and the Pharaoh answers with a resounding ‘Yes’. The Countess had access to family archives…