I have a general interest in Egyptian ancient history which was originally triggered by reading the historical detective stories of Elizabeth Peters where her main characters are archaeologists excavating the tombs and pyramids – you can see my review of these very enjoyable stories here. I originally found these books in my local library and it was there that I found, and borrowed, Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs by Barbara Mertz which is designed as an easy read and an introduction to Egyptian history for the general reader. I found it enlightening at the time and was delighted also to discover that Barbara Mertz and Elizabeth Peters are the same person. This was about 25 or 30 years ago and I had never seen another copy of this book until last summer when I spent much of a day poking around the many, many charity shops of Penrith and was able to purchase a beautiful hardback edition of the book, complete with dustcover, for the princely sum of £1.99. A bargain indeed.
This book very much reflects the idiosyncrasies of the author. She speaks directly to the reader, she has views about people which she shares and she makes it clear that she has only included things that she finds interesting. This makes for a lively read, full of opinion, which I greatly enjoyed. The author guides us through the various dynasties, how we know about things, what was discovered and when, and also what she thinks about it all. It doesn’t go into too much detail but helps the reader to have an overall impression of what is generally known or understood about the period, and what isn’t. My copy is an updated edition which is from 2007 so I expect that there have been further discoveries made and theories formulated but this is enough for me at present.
There are plenty of maps and illustrations to guide the reader and the author never assumes that you have remembered everything you have already read so that there are reminders as you work through the book. A lot of the people from Toby Wilkinson’s book about Egyptian archaeology (see here for review) also appear and this book fits well with that and with the book I recently read about the lost tombs of Egypt (see here for review).
This book was a delight to read and I shall shelve it with my, very small, collection of books about the history of Egypt.
Anne Is Reading 