Customer Reviews

Life in Ancient Egypt

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
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Adolf Erman did a very fine job on writing this book. It basically covers what it was like to live along the Nile in Ancient times. His writing is very easy to understand and I recommend it to teachers to read to their classes. Unlike some other books, this one does not just talk about the well known pharaohs but some that I have never even heard of. He also includes many special events. This book was the best I have ever read about Egyptology and covers everything anyone would need to know.

Erman wrote this book at the end of the 19th century and it is a testament to his scholarship that the work is still as relevant today despite all our advances in archeology. The preface describes the inundation of Egypt as happening in the authors time exactly as it did for the ancient egyptians (the Aswan High Dam was not built until the 1950's). Erman concentrated on the simple aspecs of daily life as represented in paintings and statuary and he succeeds in presenting an accessible but thoroughly presented account of Egyptian daily life at all strata from Slave to Pharaoh.

This is a book that any one with more than a passing interest in ancient Egypt should own. It covers a wide range of everyday activities as well as the public spheres of justice, agriculture, religion among many others. It is well written and easy to read. Some names are given using older spellings but there is a list of the more modern spellings at the beginning of the book. In general this book tries, and in my opinion succeeds, to present ancient Egypt as much more than just the place where the pyramids and tombs were built. This book with its depth of information is an excellent starting point for more modern analyses of the civilisation. Few texts can match the penetration into all aspects of the civilisation of ancient Egypt that this book accomplishes.

If you are interested in how people lived during the times of the pharaohs, this is the book to buy.

this is a good book but is from 1971 and has 411 black and white illustrations. has 565 pages in small print.