Customer Reviews

Conversations with Mummies: New Light on the Lives of the Ancient Egyptians

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

An excellent book that fuses together the history of ancient egypt with pathology, science and real-life stories from both present day and the past. The book attempts to put a real face on the lives of Ancient Egyptian people--not just the pharoahs, but the real people.
Don't read it over food, but a wonderful read and beautifully photographed!

This was one of the few nonfiction books I've read that caused me to sacrifice sleep for reading. It contains almost entirely new information (to me) but includes comprhensive background information to put everything into perspective. It is well written and entertaining. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in mummies.

I was terribly disappointed. There were few "conversations" and even less "light" on the lives of ancient Egyptians. It was mostly a history book of name-dropping. It kept informing us of what we do not know, what we hope to do, what we might learn in the future. I anticipated MANY mummies to be "unwrapped" and discussed. I expected more details on the few that Rosalie did cover.

This was really a great book, it included many interesting facts about how the actual mummy was embalmed. Rosalie David can thoroughly describe in detail the act and progression of mummy embalming through time! Great Book! A+

Having seen the royal mummies at the Cairo Museum during one of the periods when they were again on display-the political winds in Egypt tend to make the opportunity to do so episodic-and also the natural Inca mummies at the museum in Lima, I admit to a particular fascination with the subject. Under the circumstances, this book naturally suggested itself to me. While it's a pretty book, I'm not certain that much new is to be learned from Rosalie David's book Conversations with Mummies. Certainly much of the technology dedicated to research on mummies and mummification are already well known to interested readers, having become subjects of recent public television documentaries and popular archaeology and science magazines.
Written in collaboration with Rick Archbold, an "editor experienced in bringing historical subjects to life," according to the dust jacket, it's dual authorship appeared to me to be just a way for the lady to say nice things about herself without appearing to be self congratulatory! (Though whether this was her design or that of the editor himself is hard to say). Dr. David has certainly lead a very fortunate life, managing to place herself in the right place at the right time to enjoy considerable attention and success in a very competitive field. Archaeology and history are areas where many female PhDs, even during times when efforts at parity are being made, are still passed over in a conservative preference for males. Still I'm not certain these biographical details are necessarily pertinent to the stated subject of the book, the study of mummies. A more appropriate venue might be biography. Certainly we need more biographies of successful women and more role models of success among women.
Although Mr. Archbold's narrative style tends to be somewhat patronizing, at times almost irritatingly so, he does present some fine photo journalism. The facial reconstructions of Mummy 1770 and of Djedmaatesankh are particularly poignant. The photos of Dr. Dunand and her assistant walking through the Western Desert each carrying a dessicated and rigid corpse is fascinating and certainly gives a sense of the reality of mummies, as do the quintessential mummies of Ramses II and his daddy Seti I, who are ubiquitous to every volume on the subject. In short, most of the book is a rehash of TV documentaries, popular archaeology, and textbook Egyptology.