Una de las regiones mas fascinantes de Cfrica, la tierra que vio nacer y morir la mas longeva y enigmatica civilizacion del Mediterraneo, se ofrece a la vista del lector en este volumen dedicado a sus tesoros mas preciosos. Egipto, inmenso escenario de la historia, tiene lugares de pura belleza y obras maestras extraordinarias: desde el complejo piramidal de Giza al Valle de los Reyes o de las Reinas, o desde el Templo de File a Abu Simbel. Imagenes impactantes, acompanadas por un texto rico en contenidos originales, describen las mil caras de una tierra maravillosa, coloreada y sorprendente, que los antiguos definian, razonablemente, como "Roja" y "Negra," para evocar los contrastes mas fuertes que la caracterizan: roja copio las ardientes extensiones deserticas, negra como los oscuros sedimentos de limo dejados por el Nilo. A traves de las paginas de este volumen es posible emprender un sorprendente viaje en un pais milenario, saboreando, mas alla de los lugares comunes, la complejidad, los misterios y la formidable riqueza de la tierra de los faraones.
Expecting an illustrated history for beginners I found this to be an illustrated travel book. After a very brief series of introductory sections, the rest of this volume travels north to south up the Nile, from site to site open to tourists, including museums. The photographs are lovely, some of them new to me, but the text is shallow and the geographical organization of the whole misleads the reader as a chronological arrangement wouldn't have. Overall, a disappointment, but if you like National Geographic articles without self-reference by their authors, and if you plan a first trip to Egypt with lots of time and lots of money, then this might be appropriate.
A colourful treasure trove of everything from the ancient Egyptian world. A comprehensive compendium of the historic and archaeological data from 3,400 BC through to the Ptolemaic and later Roman period. Covering every significant site in the land of the Pharaohs, from Alexandria in the north all the way down to Abu Simbel in the south, including the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. An indispensable addition from White Star Publications, a five star book.
For how big this book is it's actually very light on text and gives only basic, shallow explanations of various topics in no particular order. The color photos are nice but I find it really annoying when it inserts a double page of color photos that interrupts the text. At least finish the paragraph first! It's a great coffee table book but not the best if you want learn more about Ancient Egypt.
Again, a book with little writing but tons of beautiful photographs to make up for the lack of text. Due to the large size of the book, the photos are in incredible detail. A visually beautiful book to behold.
Other things set aside, this book is very creative in confusing me by putting photo captions in various places far away from the pictures and mess with the relative position of captions w.r.t. the photos.