A History of Ancient Egypt, Volume 2: From the Great Pyramid to the Fall of the Middle Kingdom

A History of Ancient Egypt #2

by John Romer

This definitive, multi-volume history of the world's first known state reveals that much of what we have been taught about Ancient Egypt is the product of narrow-minded visions of the past

Drawing on a lifetime of research, John Romer chronicles the history of Ancient Egypt from the building of the Great Pyramid through the rise and fall of the Middle Kingdom: a peak of Pharaonic culture and the period when writing first flourished. He reveals how the grand narratives of nineteenth and twentieth-century Egyptologists have misled us by portraying a culture of cruel monarchs and chronic war. Instead, based in part on discoveries of the past two decades, this extraordinary account shows what we can really learn from the remaining architecture, objects and writing: a history based on physical reality.

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

672 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2016

About the author

John Louis Romer attended Ottershaw School, the Wimbledon School of Art (1958-1963), and the Royal College of Art (A.R.C.A., 1966) in London. Following this, he traveled and studied in the Near East and married his wife Yvonne Elizabeth de Coetlogan Aylwin (Beth), an artist and writer. After a brief stint teaching the history of art and architecture at art colleges in England and Wales (1968-1972), he worked as an epigraphic artist with the British Institute in Iran at Persepolis and Pasargadae in 1972. He worked as an artist in epigraphic studies — with the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, 1972-1973, and with the Oriental Institute Epigraphic Survey, 1973-1977 — in the temples and tombs of Thebes. In 1977-1979, he became the Field Director of The Brooklyn Museum’s Theban Expedition, originating and organizing an excavation of the tomb of Ramesses XI in the Valley of the Kings. In 1992, at the request of the Egyptian Organization of Antiquities, he convened a multinational committee to advise and recommend projects and procedures for the conservation of the Valley of the Kings. He is a member of the International Association of Egyptologists and the Egypt Exploration Society. He has been the President of the Theban Foundation since 1979. He has written several acclaimed books and produced some excellent documentaries. His primary interests are in the preservation of antiquities, and in making the past meaningful to present-day people. When he is not busy writing books, making documentaries, or pushing for conservation in the Valley of the Kings, he and his wife live in Aiola, Tuscany, Italy.

Reviews

[Sense of History]

As in his first part, John Romer is very thorough. Here he describes the period from about 2500 to about 1700 bce, more than 800 years, from the second half of the Old Kingdom (after the great pyramids) to the end of the Middle Kingdom. Of course, this way it is impossible to simply consider everything. Unlike a number of other surveys (e.g. Toby Wilkinson's The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt that I’m just reading) he wants to stick to verified finds as much as possible, scrutinize the source material, and above all try to see through the eyes of the Ancient Egyptians themselves. “I have made a history built up from facts upon the ground. A history in which the texts and images, the stones, bricks and papyri that have survived are brought together with the scanty traces of the people who created them and are all set again within the ancient countryside, on the surrounding seas and deserts and all along the River Nile. So the surviving data – essentially, a series of random snapshots, an angry letter, a broken pot, a hair caught in a comb, a splendid jewel with pharaoh's name – are set against the longue durée, the underlying currents, the monuments, the harbours, mines and quarries, the ageless desert roads, the traces of abundance and disaster.”

I must say, Romer largely succeeds in this; only in a few chapters does he cautiously venture into speculation, which is a great exception amongst archaeologists and historians of Antiquity. The disadvantage of his approach is of course that he sometimes dives very deeply into the matter. This is not a book to read quickly, and, at times, it may be too much for the average reader.

I especially appreciated his deeper insights into ancient Egyptian history. I quote just a few here. To begin with, Romer emphasizes that Ancient Egypt was primarily a visual culture: it is in monuments, sculptures and murals that the Pharaonic ideology and the entire Egyptian world view were expressed. Hence the enormous investment in megalomaniac buildings, the special eye for refined finishing of sculptures and paintings, but also in the visual-ritual aspect of cults, processions and festivals. “Down to its ending, pharaonic Egypt was ordered by a visual intelligence and found its most profound and typical expressions in making and moving things.”

Romer points out how each building and each art form (careful, this is a modern notion) has a unique character, which is surprising. Until now I thought that Egyptian civilization was mainly characterized by repetition and faithful imitation; this book has made me realize that every monument, every sculpture, every wall painting always shows a variant of the previous one. “So the ancient craftsmen were not dominated by a rigid system of design or a demand for the endless duplication of set forms; not torpor nor conservatism but, rather, the closed format of the courtly style allowed every craftsman world enough and time to concentrate upon the one essential: that every image, every hieroglyph they drew was imbued with the visual attributes of life.” Because that too is an important insight that Romer offers: innovations took place at about every stage of ancient Egyptian history, so the epithet of a 'static' society or culture is completely wrong.

Another important insight: precisely because of the emphasis on visual culture, we are wrong to look at Ancient Egypt from a textual or literary perspective. According to Romer, therein lies the fault of 19th-century Egyptology, which mainly studied texts and inscriptions and thereby magnified their importance, and moreover often translated them into 'orientalist' terms: “The common illusion that the ways and means of European courtly culture were also operating in the ancient culture of the lower Nile is greatly aided by the terms usually employed to describe the inhabitants of pharaoh's court. Simple English words like 'dynasty' and 'kings', 'palaces' and 'fortresses', 'queens', 'priests' and 'generals' along with myriad other translated epithets and titles, encourage would-be historians to lapse into the narratives or nineteenth-century European Romanticism. So it is hardly surprising that traditional histories of ancient Egypt tell bourgeois tales of kings and princes, of harems and fine artists, of noble courtiers, great generals with mighty armies guarding a nation state of nuclear families, with customs posts and a quasi-cash economy.” It is this cultural bias that makes a correct understanding of ancient civilizations difficult.

I could go on and on, but I would like to end by touching on some of the weak points of this book. As in the first part, Romer's attention to the economic basis of the Egyptian empire remains rather limited. Romer also pays little attention to the interaction with the Levant and Nubia, and to the position of women and minorities. And again I missed the comparison with the Mesopotamian culture, which might lead to even more relevant insight. But I don't want to compromise on the great value of this work. Although it is sometimes a bit too exhaustive, it still offers valuable keys to reading that 'strange' Ancient Egyptian civilization.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book (rating 3.5 stars), but I don't understand how the publisher, Thomas Dunne Books, touts the various volumes of John Romer's work as the definitive historical study on Ancient Egypt. Anyone who knows anything about historical research knows that 'definitive' simply does not exist. And the bold claim is all the more surprising, since the author himself constantly emphasizes the gaps in our knowledge of ancient Egypt. Mind you, what Romer brings certainly is some of the best that has been published in recent decades on the civilization of the Nile Valley. In this part he takes a closer look at the period from just after the construction of the great pyramids to the end of the Middle Kingdom, covering no less than 800 years. As in the previous part, Romer is very thorough, perhaps a bit too thorough for the ordinary layman. For example, he discusses in some detail how our view of ancient Egypt still is too much determined by the work of the 19th century archaeologists and decipherers of hieroglyphics. Very fascinating, of course, and relevant, but I suspect that many readers here will drop out, as well as at the detailed discussion of more recent archaeological excavations.
So this is not a real synthesis. But Romer offers very valuable insights into ancient Egyptian history scattered throughout the chapters, with distinct accents based on his decades of fieldwork, study, and reflection. More on that in the review in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

PS. I just started reading Volume3, and in his Preface John Romer clearly states: "Any new histories of this most distant culture should be tentative and inconclusive. (...) “so there can never be a final word”

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.

Oh, yay, I have now discovered there’s going to be a third volume of these. Despite some reservations when I read the first volume, I find Romer’s writing pretty clear and engaging — though honestly, for me it would be difficult for someone discussing tombs and chapels and the statuary and pomp of the Egyptian courts to actually become boring. From the reading around I’ve done, Romer is accurate and thoughtful, working with the knowledge we actually have of the Middle Kingdom to discover as much as he can, without getting carried away and deciding everything is ritual, mysticism and slavery, as people are prone to do when considering Ancient Egypt.

The book has an extensive bibliography and notes, so it’s easy to look things up for more information. Personally, for all that I love the lavish description of tombs and the decoration of temples — and especially the importance of hieroglyphs — this book does feel very long (it kind of is very long, but it feels longer than it looks, if that makes sense). So it might not be for you if you’re more interested in a quick overview: it’s definitely detailed. I find it fascinating, though, even though a lot of the description washed right over me and won’t be socked away into long-term memory. It’s interesting just to read.

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for an easy overview of the history of ancient Egypt, this isn't the book for you.

This is very much an in-depth, in-the-weeds look at Egyptian history - and of its historiography. There are eight parts to this book - and the first two parts deal with the historiography of ancient Egypt. Romer argues that what we know of this ancient land is heavily influenced by the leading 19th century Egyptologists, who were largely from Germany. And they saw the ancient land through the lens they lived through - and this distorted things, and it's been distorted every since. They took what they knew of royal courts in modern Europe and transposed it back to Egypt. They took the belief in state-building and how it's done and likewise projected backwards. Ditto the importance of written sources. Romer argues that what we know about ancient Egypt is a weird blend of the ancients and 19th century Europeans. Also, because written sources for the Old and Middle Kingdoms are often so sparse, we might be getting more 19th century than ancient in our Egypt.

Romer instead looks back at the sources on their own terms and sees what they tell us. For instance, the First Intermediary Period (between Old and New Kingdoms) is often portrayed as a time of strife and civil war. Because that fits the 19th century view of what life would be like if the state collapsed. But if you look at the ancient sources, there is little to back up this negative outlook.

Romer notes that the physical sources are more important than the written ones. Lord knows the ancient Egyptians put more emphasis upon them. The purpose of their state back then isn't necessarily the same as modern states now.

OK, but ... I had trouble getting at Romer's points beyond that. Since our written sources are limited, it's largely a sorting out of archeological sources, and that doesn't lend to any kind of narrative. It ends up being an analysis of different constructions. It's hard to find main points being made. As I went on, I started skimming more and more, as my eyes were frequently glazed over. In fairness to Romer, that may say more about me than it does about him.

Romer clearly knows his stuff. But it's rough to decipher what he knows.

[Iset · Rating 4 out of 5]

This second volume in John Romer’s History of Ancient Egypt was in some ways a surprise. The writing is academically objective, and carries a professionalism throughout that I appreciated. As in the previous volume, Romer doesn’t let it get bogged down in references, and managed to hold my attention. That said, he definitely does go on at some length about mining and stone quarrying operations, so the book drifts into dry territory that made certain patches difficult to sustain my interest. He also spends much more page space in this book discussing the rediscovery of ancient Egypt; the work of Champollion, the reaction of 19th century public and antiquarians to ancient Egyptian culture. In my opinion he spent a lot more time on this than he did in the first volume, and it wasn’t what I picked up the book for; I wanted to get back to the ancients. That said, broadly speaking it’s a well-composed, credible survey of a time period from the Great Pyramid to the end of the Middle Kingdom, and I would recommend it.

7 out of 10

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is how archaeology should be written. Romer gives us just the facts "on the ground” while rejecting insulting Europeanization and prejudice. This is real ancient history, not cliched modern story telling or the recycling of Western political narratives, both used by Hollywood and almost all other texts on ancient Egyptian history.

[Laura Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like an exhaustive study of pyramids, tomb chapels, mining operations, and the like, this book is for you. If, given the fact that there's a lot more documentation on the lives of individuals in the Middle Kingdom, you were hoping for more meat, Romer disappoints. He spends very little time on the literature of the period, for example. How could he, having presented the fascinating characters of the tomb makers of Deir-el-Medina in Ancient Lives, not rise to the occasion of the family drama played out in the Hekanakht Letters? Agatha Christie even wrote a novel (Death Comes As The End) based on these eight papyri, yet Romer manages to make the cranky country squire Hekanakht sound duller than sandstone--and Romer does talk plenty about sandstone. And limestone, and alabaster, and copper. But not personalities.

[Anne&Wim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read Volume One a few years ago, I was looking forward to John Romer's take on the next part of Ancient Egytian History. For Volume One (the story leading up to the building of the Great Pyramid) Romer took a pure archeological approach, arguing that very little contemporary material could support actual historical information. This resulted in a very fresh approach.

In Volume Two we are well into the period of Ancient Egyptian history for which a historical story is well embedded in common belief. Again Romer argues that there is no sound basis for this, this time not because of a lack of contemporary material, but more because of the way this material has been interpreted since its discovery. The author successfully demonstrates the similarities found between political structures and state organization as they existed at the time of early egyptology and early egyptologist's interpretations of Ancient Egyptian material uncovered at the time. The degree to which these interpretations are still accepted in modern standard text books is mind boggling. As such the need to remove this century old bias from the accepted story, and rewrite it starting from the source material, is what drives the rest of the book.

Once these assumptions made clear, John Romer moves forward into the story of Ancient Egypt from the building of the Great Pyramid to the Fall of the Middle Kingdom, as is obvious from the title of the volume. The author threads carefully by first examining the archaeological material and only then putting the various contemporary texts into this context, rather than the other way around.

Without going into the details of the history, suffice to say that this results in a refreshing approach, that yielded insights I never had when reading a "classical" history of Ancient Egypt. I came away with a more profound and plausible understanding of the gradual development of the Egyptian state and culture.

It's difficult not to underestimate the importance of the author's approach. Too many pseudo-egyptologists claim outrageous theories based on the seemingly out-of-nothing development of Egyptian culture, and it's sometimes hard to blame them reading some of the standard texts. Romer's work is fundamental in forming a much more gradual understanding, an understanding that only requires the human condition and the unique setting of the Nile valley to explain the story of Ancient Egypt.

I'm looking forward to the next volume already! Just hoping Volume Three won't take the author as long as it took him between Volume One and Two...

Wim

[Degenerate Chemist · Rating 4 out of 5]

What it says on the tin.

Romer explores pharonic culture through archeological discoveries and maps a path from the building of the great pyramid to the end of the middle kingdom.

This book is just as solid and well researched as the first volume in the series. The two main differences are this focuses almost exclusively on what the upper crust of society was doing during that period and a lot of time is spent reviewing the discoveries of 19th century egyptologists.

These weren't huge issues and were unavoidable for the subject matter. In the first case, the archeological evidence from the time period comes from grave goods of the upper class so it was unavoidable. In the second case one of Romer's goals is to dispell myths we believe about ancient Egypt. And many of those myths have their roots in the faulty assumptions of 19th century scientists.

This was an excellent book and I learned a lot from it.

[Kara Jorgensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really love how Romer tackles the way French and British imperialism and the German school of Egyptology have tainted our view of Ancient Egypt. He takes it down and presents the actual evidence (or lack of) to prove what may have truly happened.
That being said, this book is dry, so I wouldn't recommend it for someone who wants to casually learn about Ancient Egypt. On the other hand, if you're into more detail and less flash, it is incredibly interesting. I am highly looking forward to the third volume on the New Kingdom.
I'd love for this series to be redone as a coffee table type book in the future with more pics.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book follows from the author's previous volume and contains many of the same flaws. The author makes his anti-biblical bias more obvious and demonstrates even less self-awareness of how he falls into the same traps as previous generations of historians whose views and approaches he treats with contempt. Given the way that the author falsely views the Bible as a source whose approach matches that of Hellenistic Greeks (quite the opposite, rather), the author's capacity for insight about anything would appear to be deeply limited. This is a serious fault when the author wishes to prove himself as a competent historian in dealing with first artifacts and then texts, which the author submits to his crushingly ahistorical approach. Rarely has been the case that an author's ambitions to try to create a new narrative history of ancient Egypt founder on both basic ignorance of ancient texts and an extreme disinclination to recognize that one is doing exactly what one criticizes others for. The end result is a book that is occasionally full of interesting speculations but which has the drawback of being from an author who fancies himself to be scientific and whose efforts at every point contradict his stated goals and approach.

This book is a bit more than 500 pages and is organized in a somewhat haphazard fashion. The author begins with a preface and an introductory section (I) that reviews the previous volume's contents and discusses the relationship between history and hieroglyphs (1, 2, 3). This is followed by a look at how our view of ancient Egypt was made by Champillion and his successors (II), with a look at the view of Egypt in the beginning (4), Champillion's efforts to translate ancient Egyptian (5), and the aftermath in the setting of the high chronology (6). This is followed by a discussion of the Old Kingdom Giza king rulers from 2625-2500 (III), including the author's attempt to interpret statues (7), the excavations to find Menkaure (8), royal households (9), and the history after Giza (10). After that comes the latter part of the Old Kingdom from 2500-2000 (IV), including Abusir and Saqqara (11), the economy of offering (12), the living court around the palace (13), the living kingdom (14), and religious matters (15). This is followed by a look at ancient records and ancient lives (V), such as the transition from papyrus to stone (16), writing in the pyramids (17), processing the past (18), interpreting the pyramids (19), and courtiers (20). After that comes a discussion of the first intermediate period (VI), including history without pyramids (21). This abbreviated account is followed by a discussion of the re-making of the state in the Middle Kingdom from 2140-1780 BC (VII), including chapters on the binding of the kingdom back together (22), the court of Thebes (23), the workings of the court (24), and Egyptian relations with the Levant and Nubia (25). This is followed by the re-made state from 2000-1660 BC (VIII), with chapters on the court at hoe (26), living in the state (27), an epilogue on a supposed golden age, as well as a chronology, bibliography, list of maps and figures and plates, acknowledgements, and an index.

If one is indeed a less than charitable reader of this book, a motive for this book's existence comes to mind that suits the subject matter of ancient Egypt. Throughout the history of ancient Egypt changes in belief and practice and political fad led for rulers to try to efface the existence of the past to destroy the memory of those rulers whose mere existence demonstrated ways of life that were a contemporary embarrassment. Such a situation exists in contemporary academia, where those of the author's ilk seek to destroy historical records of the past whose insights and whose perspectives are embarrassing and awkward for the author to deal with. And so a book like this is created in the attempt to serve as a narrative history to replace previous ones, whose existence is only to remain alive as a subject of hatred and contempt, even though the current work shows the same flaws as the previous ones, only being less enjoyable to read than those older histories with their seeing Egyptian history through Western eyes. It is to be lamented that contemporary historians like the author are no more insightful than writers from the past, are a good deal less skilled at writing prose, and are immensely less charitable to others than those they criticize. The author and this work contain the vices of previous narrative histories but sadly few of the compensating virtues, and new vices of self-righteousness to boot.

[John Gossman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: Deep dive into the middle of ancient Egyptian history and archeology
This is a really good book and highly recommended for diving deeper into Egyptology but still accessible to the non-expert. Every book on ancient Egypt, by necessity, is a balance between history and archeology. In both volumes of this series (volume 3 still to come), Romer does a great job of balancing the narrative of history with describing the archeology behind what we know. This volume starts with an introduction about how the Egyptian language was deciphered, as well as extensive comments on the practice of Egyptology in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Romer wants to clear away the pre-conceptions of those early Egyptologists, products of their time: interpretations that have been passed down through both academic and popular culture for so long that they are largely taken for granted. He questions each of these and compares it to the actual physical record, sometimes coming up with new interpretations but more often simply pointing out that we don't know, and often can't know what really happened. Some reviews and comments have said something like, "Romer clears away the 119th-century racist interpretation of Egyptian history." I saw very little indication that Romer thought these early Egyptologists were racists (they may or may not have been). Instead, Romer is simply saying that the Victorians and 119th-century Germany had a view of what history must have been like based on their own experiences in a world transitioning from Eurocentric monarchies to industrial empires. They saw dynasties and palace intrigues, and large-scale industrial (tomb building) efforts that may have been very different in reality.
In my review of Volume 1, I said Romer had perfectly balanced the history and the archeology. I also said despite being fairly hefty (400+ pages), it was a quick read, and I had a time putting it down. Volume 2 has a lot more archeology and a lot more discussion of the history of Egyptology. Mostly that is good, but at some points, the narrative gets lost in overwhelming detail. This book is about 800 pages, not including notes, and in the second half, it drags at points. It covers a lot I have not found in other books, and I feel I learned a lot, but it isn't as easy as read as Volume 1. Still highly recommended. Still looking forward to Volume 3 (Update: now available!)

[Jared Arney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good. Dense. Romer, like John Ford, was a painter, and so he has a painter’s eye. Much of the book concerns the visual aspect of Pharaonic Egypt. Anyway, he does a good job of cutting through the bullshit, so to speak. This book will ruin nearly every Wikipedia entry on Ancient Egypt for you. A categorical de- and reconstructing of our understanding of that time and place. There are a handful of weaknesses. Sometimes it feels like he’s doing away with older, unsupported narratives with his own, newer, also mostly unsupported narratives that feel a bit more human. The chronology of the entire thing bounces around a lot too. He mostly goes in order, but he does occasionally reach back and leap forward. I hesitate to render this as detracting, though. When attempting to build a holistic view of a society spanning thousands of years, you may occasionally have to reference disparate eras. All in all this was very good. Illuminating. Instructive. Interesting. Postmodern. Yeah yeah yeah

[J. Else · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book meticulously constructs a scholarly account of ancient Egypt from 2625 BC to 1660 BC from the scant and incomplete archeological discoveries, while also providing new insights into an oft-misdefined culture.

When a book has a bibliography of over 100 pages, you know it’s well-researched. However, while Romer spends copious pages debunking 200 years of theories, this method doesn’t validate the conclusions. For example, at the end of the Old Kingdom, burial temples were destroyed and burned, and mummies removed from their sarcophaguses. Romer argues against civil unrest and uprisings as the reason, instead saying this happened because the people didn’t want their lands inhabited by their ancestors and the ancestral images from a no-longer-functioning social system. To desecrate sacred burials because people wanted to “move on”? This sounds farfetched, especially since intermediate-period kings mimicked Old Kingdom tombs when constructing their own. While evidence is sparse in the few paragraphs Romer writes about this topic, how he comes to his conclusions is absent. Romer also spends no time on Djedefre’s pyramid and its misunderstood history.

I was very excited about this book, but the end left me with less knowledge about ancient Egyptian culture. Was that the book’s goal?

I read this as a reviewer for the Historical Novel Society. Review posted via their website at: https://historicalnovelsociety.org/re...

[Peter Pereira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally really enjoy Romer's ability to flesh out history through various examples of archeological evidence, and this book was no different.

After finishing what I thought was a bit of an 'all knowing, all encompassing' and slightly too driven by an overarching narrative book in the form of 'The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt' by Wilkinson, this book made no bones (pun intended) in that we simply don't know everything about this tumultuous period in Egyptian history.

A period in Ancient Egyptian history which is often overlooked, the first intermediate period and the Middle Kingdom come to life with Romer's genuine passion for the breakthroughs in policy, art and overall quality of life during this period. I could not get enough!

[John Gates · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can one not appreciate Romer's work?
This is a great side view to the typical Pharaoh drudge typically blinding anyone seeking the truth of such a great culture. John dives into various biases which have shaped Ancient Egypt since its discovery and helps the reader understand the facts versus various subjective spins.
My favorite part is John's push away from dreaded intermediate periods that may have been far more eloquent and fruitful, versus the typical marathon with pharaoh-blinders donned.

[Jim Bogue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a long and fairly difficult book. The author has strong opinions and a love of digressions which make the ride somewhat bumpy.
But the reader emerges with admiration for the innovations of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom and the ambitions and aspirations of its leaders.
This is not a chronological history, and it would help to start with some knowledge of Egyptian history. But the frequent digressions are usually entertaining and often fascinating.
The author, a legend in Egyptian history, seems to have fallen in love with this period, and it shows, for mostly good and sometimes I’ll.

[Sanjay Prabhakar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Expansive and revisionist, like Vol. 1, but without the tautness of both chronology and tying of claims to data of its prequel.

[John Cairns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather than colossal tombs, written words were the best memorials, court scribes claimed. My cousin Roy left his mum’s memory to me and I memorialised her with ‘the book’ nobody wants to read; and would Khufu be remembered, albeit as Cheops, if not for the great pyramid? Writing came in about 2,500 BC. I’d thought the old testament compiled after Cyrus released the Jews from Babylon but Romer, the author of a second volume of a history of ancient Egypt, contends it was put together even later in Hellenistic Alexandria, thus invested with anachronistic coinage, camels, slavery and international warfare, in other words largely fiction. He begins with a history of Egyptology the better to counter the investment of modern ideas into the interpretation of ancient Egyptian history hitherto. The secret of the prosperity of pharaoh’s court isn’t from forcing tithes from subsistence farmers but that from the beginning it had provided enough resources, from standardised agricultural equipment to the organisation of labour systems that cut and maintained canals and irrigation basins, to enable the production of more food than the farmers needed. Obviously, he says, and the use of that word might cast doubt, there was no place in pharaoh’s Egypt for a city since cities are dependent on monetary exchanges in the market place. Far-flung courtiers provided the court with meat. The Nile obviated the need for towns larger than the pharaoh’s settlements near the pyramids. Memphis was composed of courtly settlements, warehouses, studios and shipyards over twenty miles to do with the locations of the pyramids, not a city but a region.

Underlying the order of the state was the simple system in which the living and the dead participated in maintaining identity by daily offerings to dead kings in temples built for that purpose. The assumption was not all of a person died but unseen aspects separated from the body and didn’t leave the living world but could form a continuing part of the community. Court culture was concerned to transform images of the everyday into living aspects of that unseen world. From the first the gods are shown as members of the pharaonic household. Horus débuts with Huni. They were the products of craftsmen, a pharaonic invention.

The great pyramids increased the use of copper and of personnel, provisions and supplies to support the Sinai miners tenfold. The oldest papyri tell of gangs sliding blocks of stone up ramps of muddy shale and slats of cedar, the only evidence of methods used by Great Pyramid stone workers. Subsequent pyramids required a thirtieth of materials, so the build-up of copper was run down in a solid copper drainpipe 330 yards long, door bolts, chains and catches. Smaller pyramids provided better lives for the communities that sustained the court which required imports, especially of Lebanese cedar and copper from Jordan. The drop in size and quality of monuments may reflect the changing sizes of the harvests until pyramid building stopped altogether. With the collapse of the state’s tithing system and building programme, Lower Nile communities were better off and from their tombs it’s evident they too harboured the ambition to continue after death. The long-term diminution of the Nile’s annual flooding stopped. The Memphite court had lost its purpose with the loss of all the activities that defined the state, those of ritual offering and building. The smash-up on the fall of the Old Kingdom for ecological reasons wasn’t tomb-robbing but angry obliteration of all memory of a system that had failed. The Middle Kingdom nonetheless resumed the age-old ways of building monuments and making offerings. Its fall wasn’t for ecological reasons.

The earliest Semitic alphabet was derived from Sinaic hieroglyphs.

[NinjaMuse · Rating 4 out of 5]

In brief: Ancient Egypt has a long history of being approached as a European nation, with European ideals and hierarchies—but that’s not even close to the reality. Second in a series.

Thoughts: As is usual with sequels, I didn’t enjoy this book quite as much as the first part, which came out a few years ago, but as usual, I think it’s because I knew what to expect. Romer does the same thing here as he did there, taking all the Western overlay out of Ancient Egypt’s history and focusing instead on what the archaeological and hieroglyphic records tell us. It’s all very solid and compelling, with maybe one or two quibbles which I’ll mention below, and the actual quality of the book hasn’t gone down. I definitely like his stance.

In this volume, because more is known about the Middle Kingdom and so more has been written about it, Romer spends a fair bit of time—whole sections—discussing the history of Egyptology, which I found equally interesting. He does this, of course, to point out where certain ideas crept into the narrative, like the “corrupt pharaohs and bureaucrats” thing or the “always at war” thing, and to show how easy it was (and is) for scholars to put their own cultural biases into their studies. He clearly has no patience for any of the colonial or white supremacist b.s. that went on, which is awesome, and calls out sloppy, unethical, and unfortunate archaeological and historical behaviour too.

The only thing that really got to me is that, for all Romer goes on about working from the evidence and not putting one’s own beliefs and culture into one’s scholarship, there are moments where it almost seems like he’s done that himself. Either that or he’s making claims without supporting them enough, which is also a problem. I’m talking stuff like saying “X is a clear sign that the Egyptians in this time did Y and not Z” but Y paints a semi-romantic picture that fits a bit too neatly into his story and I couldn’t make myself believe it was the only valid reconstruction either. I’d need to know more about Egyptian history and current archaeology to say for sure, though.

(Oh yeah, and he keeps using ‘cult’ to refer to people working in and leaving offerings at ‘temples’, both of which I think he could have found a better word for since neither thing is exactly as the modern connotations suggest and he’s usually better about phrasing in those situations.)

There are also few mentions of women apart from brief notes about the power women held in court and a handful of bodies that have been uncovered. I guess this is to be expected with a society where official documents were largely written for men, by men, and with archaeology being led by 19th- and 20th-century men, but it still was disappointing not to get more. Ditto specifics on the development of religion and mummification. This is very big picture history.

Overall, though, this is an interesting, informative, necessary book that I heartily recommend to anyone interested in ancient history. It’s reasonably engaging too, or at least I had few moments of thinking “when is this going to end?” relative to length and density. I learned so much! I have a new appreciation for the Egyptians! I want to read his take on the New Kingdom!

Warnings: Discussion and quoting of colonialist and white supremacist attitudes; related mentions of Nazism. Few mentions of women, as noted above.

8/10

[Adrian Durlester · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had higher hopes for this second volume. I recognize that the author's thesis is that viewing ancient Egypt through a modern western lens distorts the realities. Volume 1 was, understandbly plain and academic given that. I expected, however, an examination of the First Interregnum and Middle Kingdom to have at least a little "feel" for what it was like living in those times. Romer does attempt to present us with what we can know about the period without superimposing a western worldview upon it, but the whole effort seems to be completely lacking in extrapolation. The author has left us to do all of that, perhaps intentionally so, but that's more work than this dilletante wants to do. Give me at least a little meat to play with. All I've gotten is a skeleton. Trying to put sinew and flesh on it is a difficult task. I hope (but doubt) the next volume will be more speculative, nevertheless I will read it because the subject still fascinates me, and I tend to trust this author's presentation of the collected knowledge.

[Blake Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Romer's A History of Ancient Egypt: Volume II covers the fall of the Old Kingdom, the rise and fall of Middle Kingdom Egypt and the reestablishment of the monarchy at the ancient capital of Memphis. Covers about a thousand years worth of history from 2500-1500 BCE. Much of it is based on archeology and Romer's own Egyptology work.

I enjoyed both Volumes I & II. They are Egyptology for those somewhat familiar with ancient Egyptian history. Rather academic, I like Romer's writing style. It's intelligent, articulate, no nonsense and down to earth. I wouldn't recommend this to someone who doesn't know anything about Egyptology or ancient history. However, it's well worth the reading. Recommended....

Blake

[T.A. Burke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is largely a history of how Egyptology came into being, alongside how hieroglyphs became translated -- which is very interesting but is one degree off from my expectations from the title.

Regardless, my only problem is the author's writing style. In general, his sentences can become so unwieldy that you need to re-read to see what point he was trying to make, and yet too many times it remains obscure.

A few specific maddening times, he's written, "Of course, such-and-such..." and you're like wait/what, his statement is contradicting the premise you'd thought you'd been following along.

So, his subject is fascinating, I'm very glad to have read the book but the author's writing was difficult for me to follow at times.

[Aimee Leonhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a history to pick up lightly. It is as dense as Jamaican fruit cake but if it’s to your taste, just as delicious. I love the way Romer sets this history of the old and Middle Kingdoms within the context of the birth of western archaeology and how he invites the reader to admire this culture on it’s own merits from what little remains to us. The world of ancient Egypt is examined from accounting lists to travel graffiti, from sculpture, literature, town planning and of course from tomb inscriptions. What emerges is a sophisticated and thoughtful civilization that is well worth learning about.

[Book Grocer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Purchase A History of Ancient Egypt here for just $15!

The second volume in John Romer's series, this is exceptionally researched, full of incredible knowledge and astonishing facts. Romer describes Egypt in great detail and manages to hold your attention the entire way through. Not an easy feat!

Alicia - The Book Grocer

[Arthur Lake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Romer writes beautifully, and his emphasis on archeology and art rather than texts is quite interesting. However, unless you share his belief that "traditional" (i.e. mainstream academic) Egyptology is a "recycling of Western political narratives in orientaliste clothing," then you may find yourself frustrated by his refusal to entertain seriously most of what is known (or supposed) about Egyptian history. Instead Romer offers us his own idiosyncratic fantasy of a harmonious, bucolic Egypt free from imperial conquest, coups d'etat, classism, and slavery.

[Victor Whitman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book on Egypt's Old and Middle kingdom periods. Romer looks closely at the surviving artifacts and demonstrates fairly convincingly that a lot of what has been written is wrong or based on fairly scanty evidence. He is a good writer, but it is a heavy tome. At the end of the book, you will have a good idea of what does survive and where our impressions of Egypt came from. Embedded within its 500 or so pages is a good history of Egyptology.

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sequels are hard. In John Romer's defense, this book doesn't cover the most interesting eras of Egyptian history. There were times when he flashed forward to discuss nineteenth century Egyptologists, which I could have done without, as this book really did not need padding out. While this wasn't the best, I still look forward to the third volume covering the New Kingdom.

[Richard Cauchi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative, but struggles in paragraph flow. This is very often the issue with historians. They have so much information, which is great, but the delivery of it is lacking in flow. Reading 1 page feels like a workout.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

About the same as the first one, with all its faults and strengths. It’s a shame the third volume isn’t out yet.