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Ancient Lives: Daily Life in Egypt of the Pharaohs
Describes the daily life of washermen, goat herders, fishermen, craftsmen, and other laborers three thousand years ago in an Egyptian village
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
9 people are currently reading
712 people want to read
About the author
John Romer
25 books67 followersJohn 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.
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April 29, 2019From the 1930s until the mid 1950s Bernard Bruyere and Jaroslav Cerny worked on the village of Deir el Medina, several miles to the west of Thebes the occasional capital of ancient Egypt and a major cult centre.
Deir el Medina was no ordinary village. Built in the desert, about two miles from the Valley of the Kings and slightly closer to the Valley of Queens it was a community established to cater for the preparation for the afterlives of royal personages. A well to do community with their own establishment of servants, they carved out then decorated the tombs and made furniture for them, as well as for the great and the good in nearby Thebes.
Over the period of time as Bruyere and Cerny were working, France moved from the Third to the Fifth Republic, Czechoslovakia existed in several different forms and Egypt moved from colony to Monarchy to Republic. The excavation of the three hundred odd year working life of Deir el Medina was to reveal a story of prosperity, followed by hardship, famine, the breakdown of government, the establishment of local regimes and finally the end of royal burials in the region.
The community was literate to a high degree with its own scribes, but some of the other workmen were also able to write. And there was a lot of writing. Everything had to be delivered to the village - from water onwards. Everything had to be accounted for, hours worked, chisels used, materials required. Progress had to be reported on, work might be delayed by hitting a seam of flint, digging through into an older tomb, or that an oversized tomb lid wouldn't fit down a corridor and into the burial chamber. All of this had to be written down.
In addition the scribes had personal reading such as books of dream divination, they wrote letters and inscriptions where ever they ended up working. Disputes between workers could come to official attention. Tomb robbing was an important way of getting by in hard times all which also left its mark in written documents even though much of the elite of Thebes were in on the practise .
Still, though all the years that craftsmen worked on the tombs the basic problem remained the same - Pharaoh's life expectancy. Unfortunately there was a trend for each new tomb to be made about five percent larger than the previous tomb while each successive Pharaoh's reign could not be guaranteed to be five percent longer. In fact quite the contrary. While Ramesses II ruled for 67 years and Ramesses III for 32, other Pharaohs barely managed seven, or five or even one year in office. At which point word would come down to the village and work had to roughly finished off. The walls plastered as they were, painters set to work with no under drawing or outlined carving, a corridor adapted as best as possible to hold the royal sarcophagus. By contrast during a long reign there was time to make tombs for Pharaoh's favourite wife, or even for some of his grandchildren
On the upside these problems as with the over large coffin lid and digging into another tomb were accepted as part of the vicissitudes of the tomb business by the authorities - unlike tomb robbery.
Occasionally the craftsmen of the village turned their skilful hands to re-purposing the investment made in the afterlife by departed rulers. As professional people they did this by gently tunnelling into the rear of the tomb, leaving the seals at the front intact, and removing the valuables. Sometimes this included setting fire to the mummified corpse, then removing any metal which melted and puddled on the floor during the process. Pharaoh took a dim view of this requiring that people be questioned 'with the stick' as part of any investigation and it emerges that on at least one occasion the village elders sparked off an investigation, sought to manipulate it and eventually offered up some of their own people as culprits to deflect attention from how far the whole community was involved in this creative recycling.
Sometimes the weather worked against the settled afterlife of departed Pharaohs.
Eventually after an assault on the delta region by an ambitious viceroy, Ramesses XI managed to re-establish his authority over Thebes. In the spirit of an age of renewal he had the Valley of the Kings investigated with bodies rescued from tombs that had been flooded over the centuries. These were re-wrapped, excess precious metals removed, although fortunately the names were left in place, and lodged in other tombs. Ramesses II was moved in with Seti I, while eight former rulers plus queens and princes were laid to renewed rest in a side chamber of Amenhotep II's tomb.
In modern times a similar process started from the 1820s. Papyri rolls, sealed in labelled jars from Thebes holding details of court cases, investigations and strikes involving the tomb workers where found, removed and relaid in museums throughout Europe. Eventually letters and documents written maybe on pottery sherds or even flat pieces of stone from the village itself where uncovered and collected. In time as they were sorted, examined and published their significance became clearer allowing a book like this to be written in which we can read about the diet and doings of ancient Egyptians as they worked with copper chisels and paint brushes or when they put on their best wigs to celebrate their high days and holy days.
Deir el Medina was no ordinary village. Built in the desert, about two miles from the Valley of the Kings and slightly closer to the Valley of Queens it was a community established to cater for the preparation for the afterlives of royal personages. A well to do community with their own establishment of servants, they carved out then decorated the tombs and made furniture for them, as well as for the great and the good in nearby Thebes.
Over the period of time as Bruyere and Cerny were working, France moved from the Third to the Fifth Republic, Czechoslovakia existed in several different forms and Egypt moved from colony to Monarchy to Republic. The excavation of the three hundred odd year working life of Deir el Medina was to reveal a story of prosperity, followed by hardship, famine, the breakdown of government, the establishment of local regimes and finally the end of royal burials in the region.
The community was literate to a high degree with its own scribes, but some of the other workmen were also able to write. And there was a lot of writing. Everything had to be delivered to the village - from water onwards. Everything had to be accounted for, hours worked, chisels used, materials required. Progress had to be reported on, work might be delayed by hitting a seam of flint, digging through into an older tomb, or that an oversized tomb lid wouldn't fit down a corridor and into the burial chamber. All of this had to be written down.
In addition the scribes had personal reading such as books of dream divination, they wrote letters and inscriptions where ever they ended up working. Disputes between workers could come to official attention. Tomb robbing was an important way of getting by in hard times all which also left its mark in written documents even though much of the elite of Thebes were in on the practise .
Still, though all the years that craftsmen worked on the tombs the basic problem remained the same - Pharaoh's life expectancy. Unfortunately there was a trend for each new tomb to be made about five percent larger than the previous tomb while each successive Pharaoh's reign could not be guaranteed to be five percent longer. In fact quite the contrary. While Ramesses II ruled for 67 years and Ramesses III for 32, other Pharaohs barely managed seven, or five or even one year in office. At which point word would come down to the village and work had to roughly finished off. The walls plastered as they were, painters set to work with no under drawing or outlined carving, a corridor adapted as best as possible to hold the royal sarcophagus. By contrast during a long reign there was time to make tombs for Pharaoh's favourite wife, or even for some of his grandchildren
On the upside these problems as with the over large coffin lid and digging into another tomb were accepted as part of the vicissitudes of the tomb business by the authorities - unlike tomb robbery.
Occasionally the craftsmen of the village turned their skilful hands to re-purposing the investment made in the afterlife by departed rulers. As professional people they did this by gently tunnelling into the rear of the tomb, leaving the seals at the front intact, and removing the valuables. Sometimes this included setting fire to the mummified corpse, then removing any metal which melted and puddled on the floor during the process. Pharaoh took a dim view of this requiring that people be questioned 'with the stick' as part of any investigation and it emerges that on at least one occasion the village elders sparked off an investigation, sought to manipulate it and eventually offered up some of their own people as culprits to deflect attention from how far the whole community was involved in this creative recycling.
Sometimes the weather worked against the settled afterlife of departed Pharaohs.
Eventually after an assault on the delta region by an ambitious viceroy, Ramesses XI managed to re-establish his authority over Thebes. In the spirit of an age of renewal he had the Valley of the Kings investigated with bodies rescued from tombs that had been flooded over the centuries. These were re-wrapped, excess precious metals removed, although fortunately the names were left in place, and lodged in other tombs. Ramesses II was moved in with Seti I, while eight former rulers plus queens and princes were laid to renewed rest in a side chamber of Amenhotep II's tomb.
In modern times a similar process started from the 1820s. Papyri rolls, sealed in labelled jars from Thebes holding details of court cases, investigations and strikes involving the tomb workers where found, removed and relaid in museums throughout Europe. Eventually letters and documents written maybe on pottery sherds or even flat pieces of stone from the village itself where uncovered and collected. In time as they were sorted, examined and published their significance became clearer allowing a book like this to be written in which we can read about the diet and doings of ancient Egyptians as they worked with copper chisels and paint brushes or when they put on their best wigs to celebrate their high days and holy days.
July 28, 2007
If you've ever seen the television documentary, "Ancient Lives," you will know how thrilled I was to find the book upon which it was based, by John Romer.
Romer traces several hundred years of the history of a village now called Deir el Medine, which was located just over a ridge from the Valley of the Kings in ancient Egypt, on the west bank of the Nile from Thebes. There were no natural sources of food or even water nearby, so all its provisions were supplied by the Royal Vizier or the Priests of Amun at the temples across the river, because the sole purpose for its existence was to house the families who excavated, carved, and painted the tombs of the Pharaohs.
The village scribes kept meticulous records of tomb work, tools and supplies, who worked in which gangs (excavating, drafting, or painting), delivery of provisions, and even who accused whom of what in village disputes. Many records were found in offices right in the village, or sealed caches in the homes of later generations that moved down to the west bank of the Nile.
Therefore Romer can escort us through generations of several families, showing how they lived their daily lives, developed their skills, and passed on the creative torch to their sons. He correlates village history with historical events, demonstrating how the abandonment of the capital city by the Pharaohs (even though the city itself remained inhabited) affected provisions, government, and even policing of the area. We follow the main genealogical lines through prosperous times, through a long-standing feud between two families, strikes and periods of uncertain provisioning, a spell of starvation, lawlessness and tomb-robbing, and finally into a last renaissance before the village was abandoned after several hundred years of habitation.
We learn that Scribe Kenhirkhopeshef (who kept lists of dream interpretations and health spells as well as legal records) had a distinctive handwriting style, while a later scribe, Djutmose, had considerable authority in the government of Thebes, and was constantly feeling under the weather.
We also become familiar with draftsmen and painters of exquisite skill, whose characteristic styles can be discerned in specific tombs over the centuries.
Those who saw the TV series will remember John Romer standing in front of tomb paintings, tracing lines and colours with gentle fingers, waxing poetic as he spoke of the style and beauty of the work. Or walking up the main village street, describing the evening feasts of the villagers as though they were distant cousins, who lived a full, vital, happy life only the day before yesterday. He spoke every name with lyrical affection.
Reading this book, which came before and inspired the TV series, we discover where this poetic lyricism came from. Dry words on paper spring to life, and we can hear Romer's soft voice, fondly bringing to life each villager's individual character, skills, and aspirations. We learn to love the people and their history almost as much as he does. And when the site is finally abandoned, its last inhabitants carting their worldly possessions on mules down to the new settlement on the west bank, we are the last to leave, casting reluctant glances over our shoulders as we climb the pass and at last lose sight of the place.
Fortunately, thanks to the archaeological work of a few scholars in the late 19th and 20th centuries -- and thanks most of all to Romer's loving exposition in the 1980s -- we are allowed to return again, and three hundred years of villagers resurrect before our eyes, living and loving, and creating their sacred masterpieces in the Valley of the Kings.
Romer traces several hundred years of the history of a village now called Deir el Medine, which was located just over a ridge from the Valley of the Kings in ancient Egypt, on the west bank of the Nile from Thebes. There were no natural sources of food or even water nearby, so all its provisions were supplied by the Royal Vizier or the Priests of Amun at the temples across the river, because the sole purpose for its existence was to house the families who excavated, carved, and painted the tombs of the Pharaohs.
The village scribes kept meticulous records of tomb work, tools and supplies, who worked in which gangs (excavating, drafting, or painting), delivery of provisions, and even who accused whom of what in village disputes. Many records were found in offices right in the village, or sealed caches in the homes of later generations that moved down to the west bank of the Nile.
Therefore Romer can escort us through generations of several families, showing how they lived their daily lives, developed their skills, and passed on the creative torch to their sons. He correlates village history with historical events, demonstrating how the abandonment of the capital city by the Pharaohs (even though the city itself remained inhabited) affected provisions, government, and even policing of the area. We follow the main genealogical lines through prosperous times, through a long-standing feud between two families, strikes and periods of uncertain provisioning, a spell of starvation, lawlessness and tomb-robbing, and finally into a last renaissance before the village was abandoned after several hundred years of habitation.
We learn that Scribe Kenhirkhopeshef (who kept lists of dream interpretations and health spells as well as legal records) had a distinctive handwriting style, while a later scribe, Djutmose, had considerable authority in the government of Thebes, and was constantly feeling under the weather.
We also become familiar with draftsmen and painters of exquisite skill, whose characteristic styles can be discerned in specific tombs over the centuries.
Those who saw the TV series will remember John Romer standing in front of tomb paintings, tracing lines and colours with gentle fingers, waxing poetic as he spoke of the style and beauty of the work. Or walking up the main village street, describing the evening feasts of the villagers as though they were distant cousins, who lived a full, vital, happy life only the day before yesterday. He spoke every name with lyrical affection.
Reading this book, which came before and inspired the TV series, we discover where this poetic lyricism came from. Dry words on paper spring to life, and we can hear Romer's soft voice, fondly bringing to life each villager's individual character, skills, and aspirations. We learn to love the people and their history almost as much as he does. And when the site is finally abandoned, its last inhabitants carting their worldly possessions on mules down to the new settlement on the west bank, we are the last to leave, casting reluctant glances over our shoulders as we climb the pass and at last lose sight of the place.
Fortunately, thanks to the archaeological work of a few scholars in the late 19th and 20th centuries -- and thanks most of all to Romer's loving exposition in the 1980s -- we are allowed to return again, and three hundred years of villagers resurrect before our eyes, living and loving, and creating their sacred masterpieces in the Valley of the Kings.
August 22, 2021
Some of the history has been made obsolete by new discoveries (Romer refers to the "attempted assassination" of Ramesses III, a recent CT scan of whose mummy turned up a throat slashed to the backbone), but the centerpiece of this lovely book is the lives of the people who cut out and decorated the royal tombs of the 19-21st dynasties, and in particular it is the stories of the men who served as scribes. Anyone interested in the actual lives of fairly ordinary Egyptians will find this rich with detail and often moving: no group of non-royal Egyptians is as well known, because none left behind them the kind of records that were found in 19th and 20th century explorations of the site today known as Deir el-Medina. This particular paperback reprint is in some ways defective; there are a number of typos, and the reference to "colour plates" in the TOC leads only to rather dark reproductions in greyscale on the cheap paper the book was printed on. Recommended, but you might want to search for a better edition.
April 12, 2020
Really liked this one!
Wanna see how a bunch of villagers lived their day and night in the Valley of the Kings in Ancient Egypt? That's your book then.
Actually, not in the Valley of Kings, but close to?! Because those villagers were basically there to paint and carve on the tombs of the Pharaohs for hundred of years, their homes were near the river Nile and they were getting food and water from the nearby temples of Amun. From priests over there providing for them.
What was interesting was that this community was saving and writing down everything that was happening in the village, about the work, about someone destroying a tomb which makes sense, and about every little thing from someone calling names someone else or robbing a house, which doesn't make much sense.
There were a lot information, even much more than I expected about their lives with pretty much too many details, that I find kinda surprising, and would like to search further and see how true that is.
Also find out that after this book there's a documentary based on this book, so I'm gonna watch that for sure!
Wanna see how a bunch of villagers lived their day and night in the Valley of the Kings in Ancient Egypt? That's your book then.
Actually, not in the Valley of Kings, but close to?! Because those villagers were basically there to paint and carve on the tombs of the Pharaohs for hundred of years, their homes were near the river Nile and they were getting food and water from the nearby temples of Amun. From priests over there providing for them.
What was interesting was that this community was saving and writing down everything that was happening in the village, about the work, about someone destroying a tomb which makes sense, and about every little thing from someone calling names someone else or robbing a house, which doesn't make much sense.
There were a lot information, even much more than I expected about their lives with pretty much too many details, that I find kinda surprising, and would like to search further and see how true that is.
Also find out that after this book there's a documentary based on this book, so I'm gonna watch that for sure!
November 22, 2012
This book really brings home the wonder that is Egyptology. It is amazing that to see that such detail can be known about a community that lived over 3000 years ago. The book traces the village, and the villagers, that made the tombs of the pharaohs. It looks at their lives, their labour and their conflicts with each other and the government. I think this book was written for people who have a greater knowledge of Egypt than I do. References were made to different Pharaohs, without saying what the year in BCE was, or how much time had passed between chapters. The book followed the lives of the important people of the village, their rise to fame, and sometimes their falls from grace. I could have done with more information about the women in the village. The book focused almost entirely on the men. There was one very touching poem written by a man mourning his lost wife. But on the whole the women were hardly mentioned at all. I think the last part of the book was the most interesting to me. Egypt had fallen on hard times and could no longer afford to pay its artisans and so the people who were paid to create the tombs ended up robbing them, in quite a clever way so the government took a couple decades to notice. The last chapter looked at the work of 2 centuries of Egyptologists that helped to uncover the story of the village. This book is definitely a good companion to other histories of Egypt and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the time and their monuments.
September 23, 2018
Very interesting topic but the way it is written makes it boring.
July 22, 2023
Great book telling the stories of the people who built the pharaohs’ tombs. They left records, both in collected writings and in graffiti left on the rocks close to where they worked. Form these Rohmer tells of generations of scribes and workers. And the archaeologists enable him to also describe their homes and what they ate and drank.
December 12, 2024
I read this years ago and still remember it as one of those great books that I thoroughly enjoyed. Life of the ordinary people of the time, so much more interesting than the lives of the great and wealthy, brought to life in wonderful detail.
May 2, 2022
A beautiful and touching and very humanized study of an ancient Egyptian village.
May 2, 2016
This is an excellent book. John Romer tells the story of the village inhabited by the craftsmen who created the tombs in the valley of the kings. We have a surprisingly large amount of archeological evidence for their activities because, being central to the Egyptian state, the village was largely run by dedicated scribes who noted everything down. Through the quirks of history, many of these records have survived and been excavated, and give us a fascinating insight into nearly 300 years of the villages history. As the author points out, we know more about the inhabitants than we do about most of the Pharaohs from the same time period, and certainly we have a much more personal history - names, family relationships, disputes, legal records and so on - and you do get a feel for the ups and downs of the village, coinciding with Egypts rises and falls.
The story is told in a straightforward, chronological manner, with plenty of detail, and frequent quotes from the documents; you do feel you get to know some of the main characters. There is a lot of information about the construction and decoration of the tombs - and what an uncertain business it was, for if a Pharaoh didn't rule very long (which many did not), then his tomb was simply not ready, so he would be buried in whatever had been finished, and sealed up.
The book accompanied a TV series (which I am old enough to vaguely remember) and has a number of good photos and line drawings. If you want to get a feel for what life was like in ancient Egypt - albeit in an atypical village - then this is definitely worth reading.
The story is told in a straightforward, chronological manner, with plenty of detail, and frequent quotes from the documents; you do feel you get to know some of the main characters. There is a lot of information about the construction and decoration of the tombs - and what an uncertain business it was, for if a Pharaoh didn't rule very long (which many did not), then his tomb was simply not ready, so he would be buried in whatever had been finished, and sealed up.
The book accompanied a TV series (which I am old enough to vaguely remember) and has a number of good photos and line drawings. If you want to get a feel for what life was like in ancient Egypt - albeit in an atypical village - then this is definitely worth reading.
July 10, 2010
An absolutely fascinating study of a village of craftsmen and artists who built many of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
It reveals a million interesting details about the lives of ordinary people in the ancient world - their cuisine, their artefacts, their clothes, their struggles to achieve their own kind of greatness.
It also reads like an ancient Peyton Place. There were enough literate people around to have left us detailed records of their jealousies, crimes, workers' strikes, even illicit affairs.
Through such a wealth of detail, and through direct translations of the scribes' own notes, Romer brings the past alive in a way that seems shockingly familiar. Readers will be taken straight back 3200 years and meet policemen, artists, sailors, thieves, wives, soldiers, priests and lovers. All very real, no longer stiff, two dimensional, dusty figures on pots and scrolls, but our brothers and sisters, in the flesh, with all their human beauty and faults.
Nota Bene. This book is for the serious adult reader. The illustrations are minimal and there are 250 pages of densely-packed text without a break. This is a terrific book, but I wouldn't recommend it for younger readers.
I look forward to seeing the television series based on this. But don't use it to skip the book; you will be missing out on a real treasure.
It reveals a million interesting details about the lives of ordinary people in the ancient world - their cuisine, their artefacts, their clothes, their struggles to achieve their own kind of greatness.
It also reads like an ancient Peyton Place. There were enough literate people around to have left us detailed records of their jealousies, crimes, workers' strikes, even illicit affairs.
Through such a wealth of detail, and through direct translations of the scribes' own notes, Romer brings the past alive in a way that seems shockingly familiar. Readers will be taken straight back 3200 years and meet policemen, artists, sailors, thieves, wives, soldiers, priests and lovers. All very real, no longer stiff, two dimensional, dusty figures on pots and scrolls, but our brothers and sisters, in the flesh, with all their human beauty and faults.
Nota Bene. This book is for the serious adult reader. The illustrations are minimal and there are 250 pages of densely-packed text without a break. This is a terrific book, but I wouldn't recommend it for younger readers.
I look forward to seeing the television series based on this. But don't use it to skip the book; you will be missing out on a real treasure.
February 15, 2015
The American subtitle is somewhat misleading; the original British subtitle, "The Story of the Pharaoh's Tombmakers" gives a better idea of what the book is about. It is a history of one atypical village -- the village of the workmen in "The Great Place", better known today as the Valley of the Kings -- over the last three centuries of the New Kingdom, from the reign of Horemheb to the end of the Ramesside period and the first few ruling High Priests.
Because of the discovery of local archives, this is probably the best documented community in antiquity; Romer traces the families of scribes and foremen over the entire period, with their marriages and feuds, as well as the work they did on the tombs of the Pharaohs and their relations. I read two other books on the Valley of Kings (one by Romer, and one by Wilkinson) some seven or eight years ago; this book covers the same material from a different perspective, that of the workmen who dug and decorated the tombs. There is a short epilog on the discovery of the archives and the excavation of the site. It was a very interesting book.
Because of the discovery of local archives, this is probably the best documented community in antiquity; Romer traces the families of scribes and foremen over the entire period, with their marriages and feuds, as well as the work they did on the tombs of the Pharaohs and their relations. I read two other books on the Valley of Kings (one by Romer, and one by Wilkinson) some seven or eight years ago; this book covers the same material from a different perspective, that of the workmen who dug and decorated the tombs. There is a short epilog on the discovery of the archives and the excavation of the site. It was a very interesting book.
April 5, 2014
This is a wonderful study of the well-preserved archaeological record of Deir el-Medina, a New Kingdom village housing the builders of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. This village was unique in Egypt in that its inhabitants were mostly literate and moderately wealthy on account of their trade. Nevertheless, from the record of their lives we can extrapolate much about ancient Egyptian society. John Romer does an excellent job at presenting this wealth of evidence while maintaining a riveting narrative told through the experiences of the foremen and scribes.
I had the great fortune of visiting Deir el-Medina in 2011, and this book is invaluable in understanding the story this site has to tell.
I had the great fortune of visiting Deir el-Medina in 2011, and this book is invaluable in understanding the story this site has to tell.
September 5, 2013
I am an amateur Egyptologist -- I just gave away 88 books on ancient Egypt -- and this is by far my favorite. Not only does it dazzle you with pictures of amazing artwork, but it makes the people come alive. I howled with delight at "misspellings" in hieroglyphs, learned to recognize the loopy handwriting of Scribe Kenhophapeshef, laughed at a couple making love and they fall out of bed, felt my heart grow warm as a generous citizen is described, chuckled at an excerpt from a letter more than 3,000 years old where the father is chastising his son for giving cloth to his girlfriend instead of his mother as had been instructed...
Love love love this book.
Love love love this book.
September 27, 2012
This book is told like the reports of a small village down the road. It is a diary of generations of the tomb builders lives and times, giving one a new look at how Egypt worked or sometimes didn't work, in those days.
I found trying to imagine how their monetary system worked, getting paid in grain or kind and not coinage baffling.
John Romer makes those people come alive.
A really fascinating book.
I found trying to imagine how their monetary system worked, getting paid in grain or kind and not coinage baffling.
John Romer makes those people come alive.
A really fascinating book.
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August 10, 2008I am not the all-knower about things Egyptological, but this is one of my favorite books about pharaonic Egypt. With source material as rich and complex and fascinating as this, it remains an utter mystery to me how the Stone of Light books (which draw on the same village of tomb-builders) turned out so two-dimensional.
July 27, 2012
A very good read. In view of many "day in the lives" books that often fail -- sometimes just be lack of data -- this one takes you through lives of people in the village of the tomb makers. Not just data, and writings, but we have artifacts from the people you read about and the tombs they built for themselves..
December 31, 2019
Imagine piecing together the story of the very ordinary craftsmen, scribes and artists behind the grand tombs of Ancient Egypt based on bits on ostraca? This is what archaeologists painstakingly did, generation over generation for the workers at the ancient Place of Truth. An amazing story!
March 15, 2016
Great book! I couldn't put it down!
August 8, 2011
A Excellant Read that for me draws you into the everyday Lives of the Ancients ..... Reconmended
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews