Customer Reviews

The Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt

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A wonderful book to replace the very outdated and patently racist "Life in Ancient Egypt" by Erman, David's coffee-table book about the worldview and culture of the ancient Egyptians is quite nice. Be aware of a tendency to read certain portions of Egyptian life as "coming from an outside source" (an oblique reference to the outdated "Dynastic Race Theory" that, sadly, still seems to be held to by some British archaeologists). Otherwise factual, useful, and filled with an excellent bibliography.

This book basically follows the same format for the "Handbook to life in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome" books of Adkins and Adkins. That's a good thing, since I enjoyed those books.

I have significant interest in Ancient Egypt but know very little about it. Most texts simply concentrate on the pyramids and other monumental architecture. This text gives you a much more balanced introduction and includes sections on history, religion, the military, geography, trade and economy, and daily life. It's organized very well. It has plenty of pictures, illustrations, chronologies, etc. There is a suggested bibliography at the end of each section to encourage research in greater depth.

Overall this is a very affordable and user friendly survey of Ancient Egypt that will service students as well as adults with no prior background to the subject.

The Handbook to Life in Ancient Egypt by Rosalie David is one of a series under the Facts on File imprint. As a writer of historical novels I found this book, as well as others in the series, authoritative, highly readable and full of relevant information. Books such as this are very convenient to have at hand when writing on screen as there is no need to lose sight of the text, as would happen when consulting internet sources that may or may not be as well founded in their knowledge as Rosalie David.

To begin with, this book is well written and is very accessible for a variety of people who like to either begin their journey into the Egyptian existence. The chapterts are both cohesive in reading but also stand alone if you would like to read on a particular facet of Egyptian culture. It is, of course, not a book for in depth exploration of these topics but if gives a marvelous overview of the topics and there is a provided list of recommended reading for these topics if warranted. As above, I definitely recommend this book for beginning and intermediate enthusiasts wanting a more intimate approach to the Egyptian people and the lives they lived.

The book is very thorough in the information it provides. Pretty much self explanatory.

This book gives a good overview of what we know about the Ancient Egyptian culture. This was a book I had to purchase for a class on the subject and I found it quite interesting.

That we know more about this civilization than any other is due to their burial of their important people with stone carved inscriptions.
It is doubtful that current civilization might survive as well as these have,yet there also survive legends of unknown science at a very early time.
Mostly factual books like this do their best to dispel such ideas by detailing life and customs for different ages of the 5000 year old civilization. It is true that in the later dynasties that magic was practiced ( mostly as part of the religion and the tombs), but there is little evidence that it had any real effect.
Sometimes you think that civilizations might benefit from burning their libraries ( Alexandria) when they are full of fanciful texts on magic?
It appears that the pyramids were constructed by main large scale human labor and piling of sand before the horse and wheel had taken a hold in Egypt. We are learning that they had better boats than we had thought going to much more more ancient times as well, so that they were used in war in later times and trade.