Schon zu Lebzeiten wurden die Pharaonen des alten Ägypten als Götter verehrt. Ihr unermesslicher Reichtum, ihr Hang zum Größenwahn und ihre Bestattungs- rituale faszinieren seit Jahrhunderten die Menschen auf der ganzen Welt. Dieses Buch führt den Leser in die geheimnisvollen Tiefen der altägyptischen Kultur und berichtet über die 30 wichtigsten Dynastien. Denn auch Tausende von Jahren nach dem Untergang dieser einzigartigen Hochkultur ranken sich viele Mythen und Rätsel um ihre übermächtigen Herrscher. Vom ersten großen Pharao Menes bis zur Eroberung Ägyptens durch Alexander den Großen.
Joyce Tyldesley is a British archaeologist and Egyptologist, academic, writer and broadcaster.
Tyldesley was born in Bolton, Lancashire and attended Bolton School. In 1981, she earned a first-class honours degree in archaeology from Liverpool University, and a doctorate in Prehistoric Archaeology from Oxford in 1986. She is a Teaching Fellow at Manchester University where she is tutor and course organiser of the three-year distance learning (internet based) Certificate in Egyptology programme run from the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology.
She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology at Liverpool University, an ex-trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society, Chairperson of Bolton Archaeology and Egyptology Society, and a trustee of Chowbent Chapel.
In 2004 she established, with Steven Snape of Rutherford Press Limited, a publishing firm dedicated to publishing serious but accessible books on ancient Egypt while raising money for Egyptology field work. Donations from RPL have been made to Manchester Museum and the Egypt Exploration Society: currently all profits are donated to the ongoing fieldwork at Zawiyet umm el-Rakham.
She is married with two children to Egyptologist Steven Snape and lives in Lancashire.
Kronologisk klar uppställning av alla kända fakta från fördynastisk kultur 5300 f Kr - fram till Kleopatra VII:s självmord. Bokens överskådlighet, med många vackra fotografier (främst av statyer och reliefer av berörda härskare), visar på den sedan gammalt, för akademiker, erkända historiska bilden.
Problemet är att hur än heltäckande allt verkar, så finns det många luckor i kunskapen i denna kulturs femtusenåriga historia, vars äldre rötter är okända och idag börjat ifrågasättas.
Frankly this book should be called 'What Each Pharoah Built'. Because that's basically all this book is. If you want to learn cool facts about lesser known pharoah's, well then don't read this book because all that's in here are meticulous and formulaic accounts of what was built by each ruler and a bland summary of their rule. The book has great presentation with the artwork and pictures but it's lacking in anything else.
It's as dry as the deserts of Egypt.
Most pharoahs barely have three paragraphs written about them. Entire dynasties get two pages. This book works if you want a quick summary of 5000 years of Egyptian history in 250 pages. Maybe that will work for you but it didn't do anything for me.
Very well done! Joyce Tyldesley scores again with a well-written summary of Egyptian history. Though re-covering well-trodden ground (a chronological history of Egypt focusing on the succession of the dynasties of pharaohs), Tyldesley's clear and interesting writing style and her inclusion of recent scholarship makes for a good read, and the illustrations are well-chosen and well-presented. Despite the cliche about judging a book by its cover, I had a good feeling about this one from the moment I saw it didn't have either Tutankhamen, the Sphinx, or a pyramid on the front, but rather a spectacular and not-often-seen head of Amenhotep III.
Overall, an excellent synposis of Pharaonic history from the first shadowy kings through the fall of Cleopatra VII, and the brief chapter-by-chapter "For Further Reading" listing at the end provides a great set of suggestions for deeper dives into Ancient Egyptian history. Recommended for beginners and the well-read alike.
Einigermaßen trockene Aufarbeitung ägyptischer Geschichte bei extremem Fokus auf die Abfolge der Pharaonen (gut, was anderes ist kaum möglich für das alte Ägypten) mit reichem Bildmaterial. Der vollkommene Mangel an Kartenmaterial ist allerdings insbesondere bei eienm Band von National Geographic der blanke Hohn. Desweiteren macht das Fehlen fast jedweder kultureller Hintergrundinformationen die Geschichte der Pharaonen zu einer abfolge gesichts- und ideenloser Herrscher.