Egypt's Golden Empire: The Dramatic Story of Life in the New Kingdom

by Joyce A. Tyldesley

1st Review trade edition paperback new

Genres: History, Egyptology, Egypt, Historical, Ancient History, Nonfiction

319 pages

First published November 1, 2001

About the author

Joyce Tyldesley is a British archaeologist and Egyptologist, academic, writer and broadcaster.

Tyldesley was born in Bolton, Lancashire and attended Bolton School. In 1981, she earned a first-class honours degree in archaeology from Liverpool University, and a doctorate in Prehistoric Archaeology from Oxford in 1986. She is a Teaching Fellow at Manchester University where she is tutor and course organiser of the three-year distance learning (internet based) Certificate in Egyptology programme run from the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology.

She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology at Liverpool University, an ex-trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society, Chairperson of Bolton Archaeology and Egyptology Society, and a trustee of Chowbent Chapel.

In 2004 she established, with Steven Snape of Rutherford Press Limited, a publishing firm dedicated to publishing serious but accessible books on ancient Egypt while raising money for Egyptology field work. Donations from RPL have been made to Manchester Museum and the Egypt Exploration Society: currently all profits are donated to the ongoing fieldwork at Zawiyet umm el-Rakham.

She is married with two children to Egyptologist Steven Snape and lives in Lancashire.

Reviews

[martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this to prepare for a trip to Egypt, not wanting to arrive there cluelessly reliant on the tour guides or guidebooks. It's from a TV series so a bit episodic but it's a good introduction and there's a helpful bibliography at the end for those who want to know more.

Chapters on the histories of the Pharaohs and their deeds are interspersed with discussion of social issues and these are often interesting, especially the chapters on the Theban tomb builders and the undertakers/morticians.

The Amarna period and Hatshepsut seem to be her favourites and those sections are fascinating but after Ramesses II she seems to flit very quickly to the end of the New Kingdom, either because she has less interest or information on that period or because the TV series medium didn't allow too much coverage of the later Pharaohs.

I'm no Egyptologist but I like her honest assessment of the (un)reliability of original sources. History written by the victors and the powerful is rarely unbiased. She successfully takes the boasts of the Pharaohs and makes them an interesting theme in themselves throughout the book

[G]

3.5*

A mix of history coupled with some sipcy details on the life of acient Egyptians. A quite good book for beginners so to say. Very well edited and it reads quite well, considering the topic. As not all the things inside the book were referenced to the information source, it made me quesion at times its verdicity. If the reader, however, is looking for a more academical book, then better to skip this one.

[Matthias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting brief overview of the new kingdom history with ties to lowly classes and royals alike. It is a fascinating time period but the bronze age collapse slowly melted away the glory of prime egypt. I really like the intersplicing of ancient text which allowed us to understand the worldview of the ancient egyptians.

[kaitlyns_library · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this super insightful with valuable sources I could easily use to teach my senior class. I did just lose some interest because it’s non fiction.