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The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt is the only book available providing detailed historical coverage of Egypt from the early Stone Age to its incorporation into the Roman Empire. The lively essays and beautiful illustrations portray the emergence and development of the distinctive civilization of the ancient Egyptians covering the period from 700,000 BC to ad 311. The authors - each working at the cutting edge of their particular fields - outline the principalsequence of political events, including detailed examinations of the three so-called Intermediate Periods previously regarded as 'dark ages'.Against the backdrop of the rise and fall of ruling dynasties, this Oxford History also examines cultural and social patterns, including stylistic developments in art and literature. The pace of change in such aspects of Egyptian culture as monumental architecture, funerary beliefs, and ethnicity was not necessarily tied to the rate of political change. Each of the authors has therefore set out to elucidate, in both words and pictures, the underlying patterns of social and political change, andto describe the changing face of ancient Egypt, from the biographical details of individuals to the social and economic factors that shaped the lives of the population as a whole.
550 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2000
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5101 people want to read
About the author
Ian Shaw
87 books31 followersDr. Ian Shaw (born 1961) is an Egyptologist and Reader in Egyptian archaeology at the University of Liverpool.
His field work was largely focused in el-Amarna, but in recent times, he has done extensive excavations of mining and quarrying sites from many different Ancient Egyptian periods. He primarily focuses his recent work on methods and mechanics of Egyptian craftsmen and laborers. However, he has produced several works regarding ancient Egyptian warfare; a topic that had long been ignored or only briefly commented on by other researchers.
Besides writing original books, he also has edited several "dictionaries" of Ancient Egypt (which might more correctly be labeled "encyclopedias"; they are in no way lexicons).
His field work was largely focused in el-Amarna, but in recent times, he has done extensive excavations of mining and quarrying sites from many different Ancient Egyptian periods. He primarily focuses his recent work on methods and mechanics of Egyptian craftsmen and laborers. However, he has produced several works regarding ancient Egyptian warfare; a topic that had long been ignored or only briefly commented on by other researchers.
Besides writing original books, he also has edited several "dictionaries" of Ancient Egypt (which might more correctly be labeled "encyclopedias"; they are in no way lexicons).
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October 21, 2024This reader on Ancient Egyptian history may not be perfect (see my review in my general account on Goodreads here), it contains a lot of material that is interesting enough. Here, I want to focus on two aspects that I found worthwhile. First, the article on what is called the second intermediate period, the time between the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom, roughly between 1750 and 1550 bce. For decades, historians and archaeologists have debated the label of the so-called "Hyksos" who ruled most of Egypt during this period. The consensus used to be that Ancient Egypt was occupied at that time by a people who came from outside. Hyksos is a Greek transcription of the Egyptian term 'Hekau Khasut', literally "rulers from foreign lands". This implies that there would have been an invasion and subsequently an enslavement of the native Egyptian population.
At the end of the twentieth century, the understanding grew that this was a purely propagandistic representation by the 'counter-empire' that arose around that time in Upper Egypt (from the city of Thebes) and that was rather xenophobic in opposition to what it pejoratively called the 'aamu', tha Asians. This demystification, in turn, prompted some scholars to label the entire Hyksos story as a myth and reject the term altogether. Among others, the French overview work that I recently read, L'Égypte des pharaons - de Narmer, 3150 av. J.-C. à Dioclétien, 284 ap. J.-C. sustains this view, and confirms there was no real Hyksos period.
But In this Oxford History I read a much more nuanced story. Jeanine Bourriau emphasizes that already at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE, large groups of immigrants from the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia gradually settled in the Delta area (also called Lower Egypt). Those immigrants took over a large part of the culture and identity of the 'classical' Egyptians, albeit with their own accents, so that to some extent you can speak of an Egyptian-Levantine or an Egyptian-Canaanite culture. Seen from that perspective, the term Hyksos still seems legitimate to indicate how different that culture was from the previous periods. But it is of course quite another matter to label the culture of Upper Egypt as the only real, classical Egyptian culture. Bourriau seems to me to introduce the right nuance here.
A second interesting and equally nuanced chapter is that on the Amarna period, the brief episode (c. 1352-1336 bce) in which pharaoh Amenhotep IV, under the name of Akhenaten, made very drastic changes. He not only moved the capital to Amarna, but also imposed the worship of the solar disc as the only cult allowed. In the 19th and much of the 20th century, the latter was very often presented as a failed experiment with pure monotheism, and the link with the Hebrews was being made very easily. Almost all scientists have now abandoned this. But in this Oxford book, Jacobus Van Dijk states that a tendency had already arisen among Amenhotep's predecessors to build a state religion around the sun god, more or less anticipating the Amarna-move. I notice from reading other scientific articles that this these is not accepted by all scientists. But there is more or less consensus that in the second half of the second millennium BCE a gradual transition was made from a religious experience in which the relationship with the deities moved almost exclusively through the person of the pharaoh to a more personal, direct relationship between the individual believer and the deity. Among other things, the rise of the votive culture (offerings to please the deity) is seen in that respect. That may all seem very ethereal – certainly from a secularized modernist point of view – it is, in any case, a very interesting evolution. And it is also one that once again illustrates how little we still really know about that ancient Egyptian culture, and therefore how much room there is still for further research. Fascinating!
At the end of the twentieth century, the understanding grew that this was a purely propagandistic representation by the 'counter-empire' that arose around that time in Upper Egypt (from the city of Thebes) and that was rather xenophobic in opposition to what it pejoratively called the 'aamu', tha Asians. This demystification, in turn, prompted some scholars to label the entire Hyksos story as a myth and reject the term altogether. Among others, the French overview work that I recently read, L'Égypte des pharaons - de Narmer, 3150 av. J.-C. à Dioclétien, 284 ap. J.-C. sustains this view, and confirms there was no real Hyksos period.
But In this Oxford History I read a much more nuanced story. Jeanine Bourriau emphasizes that already at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE, large groups of immigrants from the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia gradually settled in the Delta area (also called Lower Egypt). Those immigrants took over a large part of the culture and identity of the 'classical' Egyptians, albeit with their own accents, so that to some extent you can speak of an Egyptian-Levantine or an Egyptian-Canaanite culture. Seen from that perspective, the term Hyksos still seems legitimate to indicate how different that culture was from the previous periods. But it is of course quite another matter to label the culture of Upper Egypt as the only real, classical Egyptian culture. Bourriau seems to me to introduce the right nuance here.
A second interesting and equally nuanced chapter is that on the Amarna period, the brief episode (c. 1352-1336 bce) in which pharaoh Amenhotep IV, under the name of Akhenaten, made very drastic changes. He not only moved the capital to Amarna, but also imposed the worship of the solar disc as the only cult allowed. In the 19th and much of the 20th century, the latter was very often presented as a failed experiment with pure monotheism, and the link with the Hebrews was being made very easily. Almost all scientists have now abandoned this. But in this Oxford book, Jacobus Van Dijk states that a tendency had already arisen among Amenhotep's predecessors to build a state religion around the sun god, more or less anticipating the Amarna-move. I notice from reading other scientific articles that this these is not accepted by all scientists. But there is more or less consensus that in the second half of the second millennium BCE a gradual transition was made from a religious experience in which the relationship with the deities moved almost exclusively through the person of the pharaoh to a more personal, direct relationship between the individual believer and the deity. Among other things, the rise of the votive culture (offerings to please the deity) is seen in that respect. That may all seem very ethereal – certainly from a secularized modernist point of view – it is, in any case, a very interesting evolution. And it is also one that once again illustrates how little we still really know about that ancient Egyptian culture, and therefore how much room there is still for further research. Fascinating!
June 7, 2018
This was the go-to book throughout my undergraduate degree in Egyptology, one that I consulted more times than I can recall for preparatory class reading, source for essays, prompt for presentations, etc. And yet my knowledge of it was patchy because I consulted as needed – with so many different demands on my time, I never got to sit down with it and read the whole thing cover to cover; something which I looked to rectify this year. Having done so, I can heartily recommend it.
Let’s go through the negatives first. Yes, the print is rather small. Fortunately I was reading on kindle, but even the ability to increase the size of text does nothing to clarify the tiny maps. It wasn’t too bad a fault for me, partly because I knew most of the sites referred to, partly because it was easy enough to consult a map online. But I can understand how this would deter people. Throughout the text, I only spotted two major inaccuracies. There may be more that I simply didn’t pick up on, or because new discoveries can change the picture all the time; the edition I read is the most recent available one, from 2004. The errors were that the book stated that the last monarch of the 6th Dynasty was Queen Nitiqret – this is a much later misunderstanding by classical authors writing about ancient Egypt some two thousand years removed, and we now know that the monarch’s name was actually Netjerkare Siptah I and a king, not a queen. The second error was that David Peacock in the final chapter states that the Red Sea trade port of Berenike, established by Ptolemy II, was named after his sister – it wasn’t, for he had no such sister; it was named after his mother of that name.
Another criticism which pops up in reviews is the dryness of the text, but I consider that a neutral aspect of the book, heavily dependent on the experience and interest of the reader. If you have come to this book with no prior knowledge of ancient Egypt whatsoever, and no experience of academic non-fictions, you may find the book a challenge. It is quite long and, if not comprehensive, certainly thorough in taking its readers from the dawn of Egyptian history right up to its incorporation into the Roman empire, chock full of in depth analysis about state administration, religious nuance, and political shifts in agenda and execution. If you’re a newcomer, I would direct you away from this book, and to Ian Shaw’s Ancient Egypt: A Very Brief Introduction instead – shorter, much more accessible, and written specifically for the general audience.
However, I have to admit that I didn’t think the book was that dry. It was dense in material, to be sure, but it was written in a smooth, fluid style throughout that I personally found to be far more engaging and understandable than some of the other general histories of ancient Egypt I’ve been reading lately. Despite the fact that this book, like those others, is written in the format of each chapter submitted by a different author, and then edited by Ian Shaw, there’s a consistency of style here that makes me think that Shaw curated each chapter with care for tone and accessibility. This book succeeded far more than others at holding my interest and getting across its important points. In comparison to other similar books, I also felt this book got less bogged down in numbers and statistics. It didn’t hurt either that this book was more accurate and made less factual errors than either Toby Wilkinson’s The Egyptian World or Marc van de Mieroop’s A History of Ancient Egypt.
Until or unless I find a better academic overview of ancient Egypt than this one, I have to say this is my recommended go-to book.
10 out of 10
Let’s go through the negatives first. Yes, the print is rather small. Fortunately I was reading on kindle, but even the ability to increase the size of text does nothing to clarify the tiny maps. It wasn’t too bad a fault for me, partly because I knew most of the sites referred to, partly because it was easy enough to consult a map online. But I can understand how this would deter people. Throughout the text, I only spotted two major inaccuracies. There may be more that I simply didn’t pick up on, or because new discoveries can change the picture all the time; the edition I read is the most recent available one, from 2004. The errors were that the book stated that the last monarch of the 6th Dynasty was Queen Nitiqret – this is a much later misunderstanding by classical authors writing about ancient Egypt some two thousand years removed, and we now know that the monarch’s name was actually Netjerkare Siptah I and a king, not a queen. The second error was that David Peacock in the final chapter states that the Red Sea trade port of Berenike, established by Ptolemy II, was named after his sister – it wasn’t, for he had no such sister; it was named after his mother of that name.
Another criticism which pops up in reviews is the dryness of the text, but I consider that a neutral aspect of the book, heavily dependent on the experience and interest of the reader. If you have come to this book with no prior knowledge of ancient Egypt whatsoever, and no experience of academic non-fictions, you may find the book a challenge. It is quite long and, if not comprehensive, certainly thorough in taking its readers from the dawn of Egyptian history right up to its incorporation into the Roman empire, chock full of in depth analysis about state administration, religious nuance, and political shifts in agenda and execution. If you’re a newcomer, I would direct you away from this book, and to Ian Shaw’s Ancient Egypt: A Very Brief Introduction instead – shorter, much more accessible, and written specifically for the general audience.
However, I have to admit that I didn’t think the book was that dry. It was dense in material, to be sure, but it was written in a smooth, fluid style throughout that I personally found to be far more engaging and understandable than some of the other general histories of ancient Egypt I’ve been reading lately. Despite the fact that this book, like those others, is written in the format of each chapter submitted by a different author, and then edited by Ian Shaw, there’s a consistency of style here that makes me think that Shaw curated each chapter with care for tone and accessibility. This book succeeded far more than others at holding my interest and getting across its important points. In comparison to other similar books, I also felt this book got less bogged down in numbers and statistics. It didn’t hurt either that this book was more accurate and made less factual errors than either Toby Wilkinson’s The Egyptian World or Marc van de Mieroop’s A History of Ancient Egypt.
Until or unless I find a better academic overview of ancient Egypt than this one, I have to say this is my recommended go-to book.
10 out of 10
March 6, 2023
As usual in the Oxford History-series, this compilation offers a good overview of ancient Egyptian history, always by specialists and therefore scientifically sound. Only, in practice it is actually more of a chronicle, focused on political and administrative aspects and to a lesser extent on artistic achievements. Economy, social relations, the broad culture and especially religion are touched upon very to a lesser extent. See the very critical review from my GR friend Czarny, here. Moreover, it contains hardly any illustrations, at least in my Kindle edition (strangely, the series is called "The Illustrated History"), only some sketchy maps and no charts at all. This book is now also more than 20 years old, so it is no longer completely up-to-date. On the positive side, it is well edited. A view on the more interesting things I learned in my historical account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....
July 9, 2015
Great survey volume for those who already have a grip on historical and archaeological practices and terminology. Not a volume for those with no prior interest or study of history outside of high school. If a reader is just beginning to wonder about ancient Egyptian history, they should hold off reading this and pick up a few of the basic historical atlases first to acclimate and educate themselves on some of the ways we've deduced the knowledge collected in this book. Diving right into this book without some preparatory reading will probably bore those casually interested in the subject. Examples of what to read before this would be "The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Civilizations" or "The New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History". They'll prime a beginner for the greater depth and focus offered in this excellent survey.
January 21, 2022
For the past few decades Oxford University Press has published a number of books that offer well-illustrated surveys authored by some of the leading scholars in their fields. Their volume on ancient Egypt is fully representative of the series, as under the editorship of Ian Shaw fourteen authors provide fifteen essays summarizing their subject. As is the case with such collections the writing varies in quality, but the authors are never less than assured in their command of their respective subjects. Their approach is generally chronological stretching from the Paleolithic era to Egypt's years as a province of Rome. Unfortunately the enormous span of time covered allows for only the broadest coverage, which the authors use to recount the various dynasties and some of the key monarchs within them. There is much discussion of the archaeological evidence and what it reveals about Egyptian civilization, particularly in the early chapters; while informative, the sheer number of tombs and statuary mentioned can cause them to blur together over the course of the book. The archaeological evidence also reinforces the focus on monarchs, the elite, and Egypt's funerary culture, at the expense of any coverage of the daily lives and broader social history of the Egyptian people. This unfortunate omission limits what is otherwise an efficient survey of thousands of years of Egyptian history, one that provides a good springboard for a deeper study of the subject.
September 8, 2021
Twenty years after its publication, "The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt History" is already out of date and needs replacing. Authored by an elite team of Egyptologists, it essentially attempted to use the archeological work of the second half of the 20th century to present to present the first complete social, economic and cultural history of Egypt rather than a mere chronicle of the Pharaonic dynasties. The intention was noble but the means were lacking in too many places.
The project does however begin very well with two strong chapters on the pre-historic and pre-dynastic periods in which the authors describe how the territories that would comprise Pharaonic Egypt between 700,000 B.C. and 3200 B.C. In addition the illustrations show how some of the themes and motifs of Pharaonic Art developed out of pre-historic Egyptian forms.
The problems start with the early dynastic period (beginning in 3200 BC) where the recent archeological excavations are mentioned butnot terribly well integrated into the texts of the various authors. The nine chapters covering the Kingdoms and Intermediate Periods from 3200 B.C. to 332 B.C. are still based primarily on the art and architecture of the Pharaohs along with a few written chronicles. Recalling that modern history is generally recognized to have begun with Herodotus (484 B.C. -425 B.C.) and that all historical writings previous to Herodotus are very deficient by modern standards, Egyptologist have always relied heavily on art Pharaonic objects and buildings to write their histories. Shaws' team of authors attempt without truly succeeding to break out of the basic trap. They extensively describe excavations made in the provinces away from the Pharaonic capitals but still do not have the critical mass of data to draw new conclusions. The one big exception might be in the case of the Pharaonic possessions in Palestine where the excavations of forts, cities and homes allow the historians to create a picture of Palestinian society under Egyptian rule.
One aspect of the the book that particularly irritated was that several of the authors endeavoured to show an evolution in Pharaonic religious beliefs based on changes in the artistic representations of the deities. At several points, some of the authors believed that one could detect a movement from polytheism to monotheism which is generally considered to be a sign of progress. The problem is that what the art the shows is that Pharaonic religion was just no more than an attribute of the various dynasties. Those of us who have taken courses in the history of classical Greece and Rome understand that the religions of the pagan era invariably were united to either the emperor, tyrant or city state; and that the distincitive feature of Christianity was that it was a religion of the individual and a mass movement. In short the discussions of Pharaonic religion found in the Oxford History are completely disconnected from what the reader understands about religion during the era.
Another major disappointment for me is that the Oxford History reveals nothing new about the political or caste structures of Ancient Egypt. It does indicate whether the Pharaonic dynasties should be considered as purely autocratic with all civil servants and religious officials being simply members of the Pharaonic ruling apparatus. The authors reveal that the excavations outside of the Pharaonic capitals have revealed that wealthy people began to emerge in the provinces but they are unable to say if they could have been regarded as aristocrats witih local power bases. The data appears to be insufficient to allow the scholars to draw conclusions in this regard.
The shift that comes about in the chapters on Ptolemaic Egypt (332 B.C. to 30 B.C.) and Roman Egypt (30 B.C. to 395 A.D.) is postively brutal for the reader . The language of Egypt's rulers for both these periods was Greek and an abundance of high-quality historical works from the period exist. Thus the authors in Shaw's team were able to write very satisfying narratives for these two eras which seem to the reader to be totally disconnected from the Pharaonic eras.
"The Oxford History of Egypt" essentially fails in its attempt to present a complete political, social, cultural and economic history of Egypt from its pre-historic origins to late antiquity. The problem seems to be that more archeological work needs to be completed. The reader at least has reason to hope that within 50 years a better book will appear. The Oxford team of 20 years ago should at least be applauded for not having tried to draw conclusions where the data did not exist to support them. Their admirable book is quite frustrating to read.
The project does however begin very well with two strong chapters on the pre-historic and pre-dynastic periods in which the authors describe how the territories that would comprise Pharaonic Egypt between 700,000 B.C. and 3200 B.C. In addition the illustrations show how some of the themes and motifs of Pharaonic Art developed out of pre-historic Egyptian forms.
The problems start with the early dynastic period (beginning in 3200 BC) where the recent archeological excavations are mentioned butnot terribly well integrated into the texts of the various authors. The nine chapters covering the Kingdoms and Intermediate Periods from 3200 B.C. to 332 B.C. are still based primarily on the art and architecture of the Pharaohs along with a few written chronicles. Recalling that modern history is generally recognized to have begun with Herodotus (484 B.C. -425 B.C.) and that all historical writings previous to Herodotus are very deficient by modern standards, Egyptologist have always relied heavily on art Pharaonic objects and buildings to write their histories. Shaws' team of authors attempt without truly succeeding to break out of the basic trap. They extensively describe excavations made in the provinces away from the Pharaonic capitals but still do not have the critical mass of data to draw new conclusions. The one big exception might be in the case of the Pharaonic possessions in Palestine where the excavations of forts, cities and homes allow the historians to create a picture of Palestinian society under Egyptian rule.
One aspect of the the book that particularly irritated was that several of the authors endeavoured to show an evolution in Pharaonic religious beliefs based on changes in the artistic representations of the deities. At several points, some of the authors believed that one could detect a movement from polytheism to monotheism which is generally considered to be a sign of progress. The problem is that what the art the shows is that Pharaonic religion was just no more than an attribute of the various dynasties. Those of us who have taken courses in the history of classical Greece and Rome understand that the religions of the pagan era invariably were united to either the emperor, tyrant or city state; and that the distincitive feature of Christianity was that it was a religion of the individual and a mass movement. In short the discussions of Pharaonic religion found in the Oxford History are completely disconnected from what the reader understands about religion during the era.
Another major disappointment for me is that the Oxford History reveals nothing new about the political or caste structures of Ancient Egypt. It does indicate whether the Pharaonic dynasties should be considered as purely autocratic with all civil servants and religious officials being simply members of the Pharaonic ruling apparatus. The authors reveal that the excavations outside of the Pharaonic capitals have revealed that wealthy people began to emerge in the provinces but they are unable to say if they could have been regarded as aristocrats witih local power bases. The data appears to be insufficient to allow the scholars to draw conclusions in this regard.
The shift that comes about in the chapters on Ptolemaic Egypt (332 B.C. to 30 B.C.) and Roman Egypt (30 B.C. to 395 A.D.) is postively brutal for the reader . The language of Egypt's rulers for both these periods was Greek and an abundance of high-quality historical works from the period exist. Thus the authors in Shaw's team were able to write very satisfying narratives for these two eras which seem to the reader to be totally disconnected from the Pharaonic eras.
"The Oxford History of Egypt" essentially fails in its attempt to present a complete political, social, cultural and economic history of Egypt from its pre-historic origins to late antiquity. The problem seems to be that more archeological work needs to be completed. The reader at least has reason to hope that within 50 years a better book will appear. The Oxford team of 20 years ago should at least be applauded for not having tried to draw conclusions where the data did not exist to support them. Their admirable book is quite frustrating to read.
January 30, 2011
The Oxford University Press, as many of you scholars already know, is famed for producing inimitable compendiums and texts that anyone interested in history or literature simply must own. And the have done it again with The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. While the book is pretty small for encompassing an entire civilization of dynasties, gods, beliefs, and thousands of years of ancient happenings, it nevertheless somehow manages to do the job. With tons of black and white photos, as well as many colored plates, together with an interesting and detailed text. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt tells the reader much more than they can ever hope to know about the most mysterious of ancient civilizations.
Originally published on October 21st, 2002.
For over 500 book reviews, and over 40 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.
Originally published on October 21st, 2002.
For over 500 book reviews, and over 40 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.
July 22, 2011
The unintentionally humorous reviews on the back say it all--"full of facts," raved one critic, while another proclaimed, "if you only want to read one book about Ancient Egypt, make it this one." I found both statements to be accurate.
In large part a very dry read; the chapters smacked of "please read my thesis," but amid all the stuffy academia, there was quite a bit of interesting information. Many of the authors seemed weirdly obsessed with pottery.
In large part a very dry read; the chapters smacked of "please read my thesis," but amid all the stuffy academia, there was quite a bit of interesting information. Many of the authors seemed weirdly obsessed with pottery.
April 4, 2014
As dry as the mummies described, but covering something like 10,000 years of history is going to lean that way.
August 14, 2014
The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
Ian Shaw (Credited)
Read it in paper back at a very long 554 pages.
OTC Historic Side Pots first read, and what a challenging beginning to this whole shenanigans. A lot of us have a pretty big interest in history (even though we all like different time periods), so we decided on four books this year to start delving into Ancient History. The Mediterranean has the most easily identifiable and well documented history, thus we started with Egypt.
Ian Shaw is credited with writing this, but it covers a very large amount of history, broken into sections, and widely written by a host of people including Stan Hendrix, Pierre Vermeersch, Beatrix Midant-Reynes, Kathryn Bard, Jaromir Malek, Stephen Seidlmayer, Gae Callender, Janine Bourriau, Betsy Bryan, Jacobus Van Dijk, John Taylor, Alan Lloyd, and David Peacock. A well-established list of contributors.
As noted, it's a large breadth of history starting at about 700,00 BC till about major occupation and control by Rome in 30BC and closing 395AD. As it turns out, we don't know all that much about early human history and what we do know is all provided by archeology instead of written word which makes much of this very dry but informative, probably more exciting if human waste piles and pottery shards are your thing. For us, it made for some difficult early reading. It moves onto cover the early pyramids, the most famous ones built in very early Egypt. The fact that they were able to leverage such a large work force, come up with lasting architectural monuments with nearly pin point positioning, and culturally deep enough to motivate their creation, is most inspiring. From this initial base Egypt creates an empire that's astonishing and nearly unheard of at the time. The established list of contributors each cover portions of time in which the empire goes through rises, glory days, bad leadership, divisions, wars, and everything else that happens over thousands of years of existence. All of this precariously pieced together from monuments and the boastful inscriptions that adorn them.
But that's kind of one of the problems. The subject matter is so vast and the inscriptions provide a hazy picture at best which makes it hard to get a really good idea of what happened in many occasions. Due to heavy theft, dis-regard for their cultural heritage places, and the ever whisper of time it just gets harder. If you are looking for a conclusive history of every period (minus details of Roman occupation) of Egyptian Antiquity, look no further. This book does not cover Egyptian religion with much detail beyond notable funeral cults and basic traditions and deities. From that perspective it's a bit disappointing.
So while infinitely interesting the Oxford History of Ancient Egypt incredibly dry. This was the primary complaint with the tomb. Out of four people attempting we had three complete, but we won't be grading these. Since this was our first book for this and I didn't really know how it would go, I kind of dropped the ball and our meeting wasn't as stimulating as I had hoped as our conversation lacked any structure, something I will need to remedy for Greece.
Happy Reading and onto Greece, the next rock in our path.
Ian Shaw (Credited)
Read it in paper back at a very long 554 pages.
OTC Historic Side Pots first read, and what a challenging beginning to this whole shenanigans. A lot of us have a pretty big interest in history (even though we all like different time periods), so we decided on four books this year to start delving into Ancient History. The Mediterranean has the most easily identifiable and well documented history, thus we started with Egypt.
Ian Shaw is credited with writing this, but it covers a very large amount of history, broken into sections, and widely written by a host of people including Stan Hendrix, Pierre Vermeersch, Beatrix Midant-Reynes, Kathryn Bard, Jaromir Malek, Stephen Seidlmayer, Gae Callender, Janine Bourriau, Betsy Bryan, Jacobus Van Dijk, John Taylor, Alan Lloyd, and David Peacock. A well-established list of contributors.
As noted, it's a large breadth of history starting at about 700,00 BC till about major occupation and control by Rome in 30BC and closing 395AD. As it turns out, we don't know all that much about early human history and what we do know is all provided by archeology instead of written word which makes much of this very dry but informative, probably more exciting if human waste piles and pottery shards are your thing. For us, it made for some difficult early reading. It moves onto cover the early pyramids, the most famous ones built in very early Egypt. The fact that they were able to leverage such a large work force, come up with lasting architectural monuments with nearly pin point positioning, and culturally deep enough to motivate their creation, is most inspiring. From this initial base Egypt creates an empire that's astonishing and nearly unheard of at the time. The established list of contributors each cover portions of time in which the empire goes through rises, glory days, bad leadership, divisions, wars, and everything else that happens over thousands of years of existence. All of this precariously pieced together from monuments and the boastful inscriptions that adorn them.
But that's kind of one of the problems. The subject matter is so vast and the inscriptions provide a hazy picture at best which makes it hard to get a really good idea of what happened in many occasions. Due to heavy theft, dis-regard for their cultural heritage places, and the ever whisper of time it just gets harder. If you are looking for a conclusive history of every period (minus details of Roman occupation) of Egyptian Antiquity, look no further. This book does not cover Egyptian religion with much detail beyond notable funeral cults and basic traditions and deities. From that perspective it's a bit disappointing.
So while infinitely interesting the Oxford History of Ancient Egypt incredibly dry. This was the primary complaint with the tomb. Out of four people attempting we had three complete, but we won't be grading these. Since this was our first book for this and I didn't really know how it would go, I kind of dropped the ball and our meeting wasn't as stimulating as I had hoped as our conversation lacked any structure, something I will need to remedy for Greece.
Happy Reading and onto Greece, the next rock in our path.
August 22, 2012
Serious history book, works great as a reference. A hard slog if you read it cover to cover and you are relatively new to digging around Ancient Egypt. As expected, the chapters that deal with more recent times were more interesting, particularly the sections that reference the intersection of Ancient Egypt with peoples of the Bible, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. I would have enjoyed more pictures of the architecture and art that are referenced in the text; perhaps the hardcover has these?
August 10, 2019
This book is awesome, it is a multi-authored book and hence it is absolutely jam packed with details and information, from the Palaeolithic (700,000 years ago) and Neolithic epochs, into the Pre-dynastic cultures, through every single dynasty (from 1 to 30), the old kingdom, intermediate periods and middle and new kingdoms, even into the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. This book leaves nothing to be desired. I wholeheartedly recommend!
November 9, 2015
Obviously Written by an aerchaeologist I can say I learnt absolutely nothing about Ancient Egypt, One would think that the only people of any importance was the Pharoeh and the only things of interest were their burials! Awful!
December 7, 2012
Truth be told, I wavered a great deal on rating this one, and never quite made up my mind as to whether to go with three or four stars. I finally opted for four because the scholarship is simply top-notch.
Let me start my review, however, by discussing the minuses. The biggest problem is that this book will not be very accessible unless you've already got a basic and passing familiarity with the history of Ancient Egypt. If you go into this one having only encountered Egypt back in the first unit of a Western Civ or World History course, it will be very daunting. The first few chapters talk mainly about the archaeological evidence for Egypt's development in the pre-dynastic periods and Old Kingdom. There's very little narrative.
But the nature of the first chapters cuts both ways, makes it both a minus and a plus. After all, it doesn't coddle the reader, giving a somewhat artificially smoothed out narrative history. Rather, it treats the reader like a serious scholar, saying what we do know and how we know it.
The other minus is more serious, and that's the difficulty with place names. Most of the authors of this book--and, like most Oxford illustrated histories, it's written by a collection of authors--assume a ready familiarity with the various place-names of cities and archaeological sites in Egypt. And of course, all of these names will be familiar to a trained Egyptologist. But if you're, say, a medievalist who's reading this book to make your teaching of Western Civ 1 and World History to 1500 better, it can be maddening, especially as the maps will not always have all the place names mentioned in a chapter.
But the pluses far, far outweigh the minuses. In the first place, it's a treat to get a really good sense of the state of the field in a general introduction. Moreover, the lavish illustrations in both color and black and white help instantiate what you're reading about, help to give a sense of physicality to the Egypt of the pharaohs. And there's also as much social history as you could possibly hope for: it's nice to be able to get a sense of what the Egyptian farmers were up to when they weren't building those huge monuments for the pharaohs.
And finally, it's bibliography is both up to date and very, very thorough, not only with the secondary literature, but also with primary sources in translation.
So I'd recommend that when you approach this one, you keep in mind that it's dense, slow going, but is very, very much worth it.
Let me start my review, however, by discussing the minuses. The biggest problem is that this book will not be very accessible unless you've already got a basic and passing familiarity with the history of Ancient Egypt. If you go into this one having only encountered Egypt back in the first unit of a Western Civ or World History course, it will be very daunting. The first few chapters talk mainly about the archaeological evidence for Egypt's development in the pre-dynastic periods and Old Kingdom. There's very little narrative.
But the nature of the first chapters cuts both ways, makes it both a minus and a plus. After all, it doesn't coddle the reader, giving a somewhat artificially smoothed out narrative history. Rather, it treats the reader like a serious scholar, saying what we do know and how we know it.
The other minus is more serious, and that's the difficulty with place names. Most of the authors of this book--and, like most Oxford illustrated histories, it's written by a collection of authors--assume a ready familiarity with the various place-names of cities and archaeological sites in Egypt. And of course, all of these names will be familiar to a trained Egyptologist. But if you're, say, a medievalist who's reading this book to make your teaching of Western Civ 1 and World History to 1500 better, it can be maddening, especially as the maps will not always have all the place names mentioned in a chapter.
But the pluses far, far outweigh the minuses. In the first place, it's a treat to get a really good sense of the state of the field in a general introduction. Moreover, the lavish illustrations in both color and black and white help instantiate what you're reading about, help to give a sense of physicality to the Egypt of the pharaohs. And there's also as much social history as you could possibly hope for: it's nice to be able to get a sense of what the Egyptian farmers were up to when they weren't building those huge monuments for the pharaohs.
And finally, it's bibliography is both up to date and very, very thorough, not only with the secondary literature, but also with primary sources in translation.
So I'd recommend that when you approach this one, you keep in mind that it's dense, slow going, but is very, very much worth it.
May 31, 2012
The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt is thorough -- very thorough, in a manner characteristic of the Oxford histories. Eminent scholars from Europe, North America, and Australia (though, oddly, no scholars from Egyptian universities) contribute different chapters, and a complete picture of pharaonic society emerges over the course of the book. Rather than reading this dense and demanding text chronologically, you may find it easier to pick out your own particular area of interest and read those parts of the book first. I've always been particularly interested in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, and after reading those chapters I found it easier to delve into the intricacies of the various kingdoms and dynasties and intermediate periods. Very well illustrated with color plates, photographs, maps, graphs, and diagrams that capture well the grandeur and dynamism of pharaonic Egypt's material culture. This Oxford history enhances the reader's understanding of an intriguing ancient civilization.
November 26, 2019
For a book that has to cover several thousands of years, Shaw has really managed to summarize the elements of the different Egyptian periods in a few that is easy to follow while making sure to cover everything that needs to be covered. Of course, it covers most things in a very brief way; and occasionally focusing on things I'm not entirely sure are the things that should be focused on... but I also realise that there are books written specifically about those things. As a go-to introduction that covers most of the basics... this has been my bible for the last few months. Except people probably take better care of their bibles than I've cared for this one... but hey, that's just proof it's been passionately read.
October 29, 2017
This is part of my efforts to read behind a World History course that I'm currently teaching. I left the Near East and Egypt for last because I was relatively well acquainted with the material. This is, of course, a collection of different scholars and gives a series of perspectives. The studies are uniformly strong contributions and give a detailed survey of the ancient Egyptian period. This is an excellent place to start a study of Egypt's history and quite readable.
November 27, 2021
I normally hate anthologies, or history/archaeology books written by multiple authors. This is an exception for me. While each chapter (focusing on a period of Egyptian history) was written by a different author, they flowed smoothly. The book is filled with useful maps, photos, and illustrations which supplement the excellent text. I found this readable, and know I will use it as a reference in the future.
March 7, 2021
Esto ha sido una primera lectura. Seguramente lo leeré alguna vez más porque básicamente es un libro de texto.
Si te gusta la egiptología, este libro es muy, muy recomendable. Lo compré por recomendación de un profesor y desde luego es todo un acierto.
Para quien le pueda interesar, la traducción es de José Miguel Parra Ortiz.
Si te gusta la egiptología, este libro es muy, muy recomendable. Lo compré por recomendación de un profesor y desde luego es todo un acierto.
Para quien le pueda interesar, la traducción es de José Miguel Parra Ortiz.
July 3, 2020
كتاب متميز عبارة عن تاريخ مختصر لكنه شامل للحضارة الفرعونية وحتى نهاية الاحتلال الروماني، مكتوب بشكل جديد، ١٥ فصل يكتبهم ١٥ عالم مختلف كل في تخصصه، الكتاب حديث نسبيا، صدر سنة ٢٠٠٢، لذلك معظم المعلومات فيه محدثه وصحيحه
April 17, 2022
Sekadar rujukan bagi menjayakan projek M
August 30, 2020
Disappointing. I'm educated. I read academic, quasi-academic and quasi-popular books and articles in history, linguistics, anthropology, and archeology. I particularly enjoy books that combine data from more than one discipline. Here I expected archeology and history, maybe with some interesting tidbits on language, writing, and science. Each chapter has a different author. Some are written better than others. Some are very formulaic. All suffer from too many details and not enough connections, cities listed in the text that aren't on the map, temples that are referenced but not described. (Am I supposed to have been there?) If every chapter was accompanied by 50 slides maybe the book would come alive. But in this form (basically bare text), it is dead. The small number of color plates aren't tied in and add little. The plates did remind me how good some museum collections are, how excellent a good lecture with well-chosen slides can be. This book was not a useful learning experience, much less an enjoyable experience. I didn't learn anything about language, writing or science. Nothing about technology, medicine, or math. And since few chapters bothered to describe and none actually showed me the various pots, temples, and decorations they compared and contrasted, I'm not sure what I learned. Very, very disappointing.
Read
December 10, 2019I'd just read the story of the children of Israel walking across the Red Sea on dry ground in the Bible.
The thought came to me to wonder what Egypt was like after they left. The land had been striped bare of foliage, many, many dead people and animals, the entire army dead after the ten plagues and the Red Sea crossing.
I got this book to see what happened to them and how they recovered after such a devastating blow to every aspect of their lives.
This book mentions "nothing" about any of that. It's like they're in complete denial, and this is a book that Egyptologists study. This reminded me of a college anthropology teacher. I asked him how did the flood appear on anthropological digs. He said there is no trace that a flood ever happened.
This is the part where I choose to have faith and believe.
If you want to learn which of the pharaohs built monuments to themselves this is the book for you.
The thought came to me to wonder what Egypt was like after they left. The land had been striped bare of foliage, many, many dead people and animals, the entire army dead after the ten plagues and the Red Sea crossing.
I got this book to see what happened to them and how they recovered after such a devastating blow to every aspect of their lives.
This book mentions "nothing" about any of that. It's like they're in complete denial, and this is a book that Egyptologists study. This reminded me of a college anthropology teacher. I asked him how did the flood appear on anthropological digs. He said there is no trace that a flood ever happened.
This is the part where I choose to have faith and believe.
If you want to learn which of the pharaohs built monuments to themselves this is the book for you.
September 13, 2016
Preface: Read this surgically during an Ancient Egypt course at University.
Complete with maps and other relevant images, Shaw's "History of Ancient Egypt" combines history with anthropology. Well researched with an extensive "Further Reading" section, this is a must-have for anyone interested in a specific period of Egypt's history or just a general background of what happened between the Palaeolithic and the Roman Period.
Pros: Extensive. Something for everyone, the casual reader and the researcher alike.
Cons: Unless you are strongly motivated by the subject of Ancient Egypt and history in general, the writing can be interpreted as dry.
Complete with maps and other relevant images, Shaw's "History of Ancient Egypt" combines history with anthropology. Well researched with an extensive "Further Reading" section, this is a must-have for anyone interested in a specific period of Egypt's history or just a general background of what happened between the Palaeolithic and the Roman Period.
Pros: Extensive. Something for everyone, the casual reader and the researcher alike.
Cons: Unless you are strongly motivated by the subject of Ancient Egypt and history in general, the writing can be interpreted as dry.
September 28, 2009
Dryer than it needs to be. Each period is documented by a different author, so it is inevitably uneven. As is so often the case with history books, I wonder why they don't focus a little more on cultural history. The names of kings and the dates of invasions don't tell us more about a people than the character of their culture or beliefs.
Still, this book seems to be widely regarded as the basic historic intro, and purely on those terms it succeeds well enough. It could have used more better maps too - a map is worth 1000 words.
Still, this book seems to be widely regarded as the basic historic intro, and purely on those terms it succeeds well enough. It could have used more better maps too - a map is worth 1000 words.
November 23, 2018
An excellent introduction to the history of ancient Egypt. As an absolute beginner on the subject I was not quite sure what to expect and naturally my lack of reading of other secondary sources on Egyptian history means I cannot compare this work with others at present. None the less I came away with a much transformed perception of Ancient Egypt as land of deep rooted tradition, cultural richness and religious complexity which persisted and evolved over three millennium.
I would happily recommend this book to anyone wishing to introduce themselves to the world of Ancient Egypt.
I would happily recommend this book to anyone wishing to introduce themselves to the world of Ancient Egypt.
May 14, 2017
Very academic and dry. The only way to create a book covering the whole of ancient Egyptian civilization without going into thousands of pages is to exclude a lot, and that's the case here. It's mostly focused on political developments, with very little about culture, architecture, military battles, and so on.
April 18, 2010
Chock full of information, not easy reading. Very dry and achaeological. Many long lists of kings. And pottery, lots of pottery. I certainly know far more about ancient Egypt than ever before, that's for sure.
January 7, 2021
Libro de cabecera para conocer el antiguo Egipto
January 8, 2020
Tähtimäärä on väärä, koska arvioin kirjaa vääristä lähtökohdista. Vähän kuin lyhyen ruotsin opiskelija kitisis pitkän ruotsin yo-kokeen vaikeudesta, kun on ensin kirjoittaa pitkän.
Saviruukkuja, lisää saviruukkuja. Muinaisessa egyptissä oli 30 dynastiaa saviruukkuja, joita ennen oli vielä erilaisia ruukkuja, mutta jotka kuitenkin sulautuivat ensimmäisten dynastioiden ruukkuihin. Dynastioiden jälkeen tulivat vielä persialaiset, kreikkalaiset ja roomalaiset ruukut, jotka kuitenkin saivat vahvoja vaikutteita dynastioiden ruukuista. Dynastioiden ruukut voidaan jakaa myös isompiin ajanjaksoihin, joiden pohjana voidaan käyttää jo antiikin aikaisia ja keskiaikaisia ruukkututkimuksia. Nykytutkimuksen valossa on selvää , että kuningaskunniksi ja välijaksoiksi nimettyjen kausien ruukut heijastavat toisiaan ja välijaksojen ruukut ovat arvokkaita ihan itsessään.
Ruukkujen lisäksi oli ilmeisesti myös muita tapahtumia, mutta niistä jäi mieleen hyvin vähän. Paitsi, että kuuluisat pyramidit olivat vanhan kuningaskunnan eli varhaisimman kauden kotkotuksia, myöhemmin hautamenoja muutettiin. Ja faaraot ryöstelivät toistensa haudoista naamioita (Tutankhamonin naamio voi esimerkiksi olla Nefertitin (kyllä, sen Waltarin kirjasta tutun) naamio alunperin) ja faaroiden sukupuolisuhteet sukulaisiinsa voitaisiin anakronistisesti tulkita kieroutuneiksi.
Saviruukkuja, lisää saviruukkuja. Muinaisessa egyptissä oli 30 dynastiaa saviruukkuja, joita ennen oli vielä erilaisia ruukkuja, mutta jotka kuitenkin sulautuivat ensimmäisten dynastioiden ruukkuihin. Dynastioiden jälkeen tulivat vielä persialaiset, kreikkalaiset ja roomalaiset ruukut, jotka kuitenkin saivat vahvoja vaikutteita dynastioiden ruukuista. Dynastioiden ruukut voidaan jakaa myös isompiin ajanjaksoihin, joiden pohjana voidaan käyttää jo antiikin aikaisia ja keskiaikaisia ruukkututkimuksia. Nykytutkimuksen valossa on selvää , että kuningaskunniksi ja välijaksoiksi nimettyjen kausien ruukut heijastavat toisiaan ja välijaksojen ruukut ovat arvokkaita ihan itsessään.
Ruukkujen lisäksi oli ilmeisesti myös muita tapahtumia, mutta niistä jäi mieleen hyvin vähän. Paitsi, että kuuluisat pyramidit olivat vanhan kuningaskunnan eli varhaisimman kauden kotkotuksia, myöhemmin hautamenoja muutettiin. Ja faaraot ryöstelivät toistensa haudoista naamioita (Tutankhamonin naamio voi esimerkiksi olla Nefertitin (kyllä, sen Waltarin kirjasta tutun) naamio alunperin) ja faaroiden sukupuolisuhteet sukulaisiinsa voitaisiin anakronistisesti tulkita kieroutuneiksi.
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