The Pharaohs

by Joyce A. Tyldesley

Concerning Egypt itself, I shall extend my remarks to a great length, because there is no country that possesses so many wonders.' The Greek writer Herodotus wrote these words as long ago as the 5th century BC, and the ancient civilization of Egypt has continued to cast its spell on historians, archaeologists and visitors ever since. Thanks to its geographical isolation, Egypt developed a unique and self-contained culture whose religion, customs, art, architecture and social structures changed little over 3000 years. And its dry climate led to the preservation of a wealth of monuments including ancient cities, pyramids, temples and other sumptuous artefacts. The Pharaohs is an illustrated history of the kings who ruled over this extraordinary land, narrating the story of 30 dynasties starting around 3100 BC when the first pharaoh, Menes, unified Upper and Lower Egypt, and ending with the conquest of Egypt in 332 BC by Alexander the Great. It profiles powerful, and sometimes enigmatic, rulers such as Mentuhotep II, Thutmose III, Amenophis II, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. The story of these kings includes such seminal events in ancient Egyptian history as the development of the science of writing and the building of the first pyramid at Saqqara during the Archaic Period; the building of the pyramids at Giza by the centralized administration of the Old Kingdom; the expansion of trade with the Levant and Nubia during the Middle Kingdom (the 'classical' phase of pharaonic civilization); the rule of the foreign Hyksos kings and their introduction of technical innovations such as the horse-drawn chariot; the undertaking of grandiose building projects in the Valley of the Kings by the pharaohs of New Kingdom; expansion into Palestine and Syria which led to conflict with the Hittites; the long decline of Egypt during the Late Period, culminating in its invasion and annexation by Persia and its eventual conquest by Alexander the Great.

Genres: History, Egypt, Nonfiction, Egyptology

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick review of the the ancient ruling Pharaohs of Egypt.

[Lavender · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some nice photos of artifacts. Insight into the history of egyptian pharaohs.

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Mark]

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.

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.