Customer Reviews

Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt (The Chronicles Series)

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The Chronicle series is always great including here as Peter Clayton introduces us to the 33 dynasties that were ancient Egypt.

Starting with Menes the Great (who united Upper and Lower Egypt) and ending with the dynasty created by Alexander the Great (which included Cleopatra XIII...THE CLEOPATRA!) this book is a wonderful introduction to both the Pharaohs and their relationships with each other!

In the process, one learns the story behind such luminaries as Menes as well such unsung heros of Egyptian history as Thutmose III (grandfather to Akhnaten and rightly referred to as the Alexander the Great of Egypt).

While it is true that this entry in the Chronicle series (like all of it counterparts) suffers from the curse of brevity, it also has the significant strength of including ALL the characters concerned and giving one that ALL IMPORTANT SENSE OF THE BIG PICTURE.

This is both a wonderful and wonderfully illustrated book that will give you VERY BRIEFLY a sense of the scope of the 33 dynasties that were ancient Egypt.

Buy it. You won't regret the purchase!

When you look at the historical Kings and Queens of (Pharaohs) of Egypt, its easy to get mixed up and lost, especially when there are two Kings, one of Upper Egypt and one of Lower Egypt and why. Some of these kings and queens have only been discovered in the last one or two hundred years. This book will show the chronological order in which they ruled and a caption on the mark they left on history. The book will teach you the real meaning of the word DYNASTY and how important the royal blood ties were to them.

The Chronicle of the Pharaohs is generously illustrated with b & w, color photos, drawings and maps. This is a must have book for the novice Egyptian history buff like myself.

I own the hardbound copy and would recommend a good to excellent used copy of this book. It would make a great addition to anyone's private library or a fine gift. Weather hardbound or soft cover, get this book, it's worth every dime you pay for it.

This is an excellent introduction to the political history of ancient Egypt. Readers are given a reign-by-reign review of Egyptian history. In addition, the author presents some information on religious and village culture, generally relating such topics to the treasures discovered in the tombs of the pharaohs. I would have liked to see more information on the international relations of the Egyptian kings--there are some references, but it's never a strong focus of the book.

This book offers a brief history of each pharaoh in an easy to follow format.

Page 9, first paragraph:

"In the early 6th century BC Solon, the Athenian statesman and legislator, travelled to Egypt. There he visited the temple in the city of Naucratis in the Delta, a city recently settled by Greeks from Miletus. Solon, as a great statesman from a great city, was justly proud of Athens and its long history, but he was sharply put in his place by the priests of the temple with whom he was discussing history when they tartly reminded him: "You Hellenes [Greeks] are but children." They ment and rightly so, that Greek history could not in any way equate in time and content with that of Egypt."

Peter A. Clayton "Chronicle of the Pharaohs" Thames and Hudson ed.

THE TRUTH:

...Solon told us how astonished he was to hear this, and said

That he begged the priests as forcefully as he could to give

him next a detailed and thorough account of those fellow

citizens of his from long ago. And the priests replied: "I'll do

so gladly, Solon, not for your sake and for Athens, but

also and especially for the sake of goddess who is the

patron, nurse, and governess of both our cities. Your city was

founded first, when the goddess received your rootstock

from Earth and Hephaestus, and ours was founded a thou-

sand years later. The written records in our temple give

the figure of 8,000 years as the age of our culture, so it

is Athenians of 9,000 years ago whose custom and whose

finest achievements I shall briefly explain to you...

Timaeus and Critias (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

by Plato, Andrew Gregory

The bottom line of what the priest says in Plato's story is that Greek (Hellenic) culture is about a thousand years older of that of Egypt.

[...]

An unfortunate argument to prove Egypt's longer history.