ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PRODUCT REVIEWS & RECOMMENDATIONS

The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt

This book illuminates the lives of the kings, queens, princes, and princesses of ancient Egypt, unraveling family relationships and exploring the parts they played in politics, cultural life, and religion. It ranges from the dawn of Egyptian history, when only isolated glimpses are available of the royal family, through the vast progeny of Rameses II, and ends with the fiendishly complicated and blood-soaked interconnections of the Ptolemies and Cleopatras.

This book is the most complete reference of the royal genealogy in Ancient Egypt that I have ever read. You would be amazed with the amount of detail that was put into this book. It is very easy to understand and has clearly been thoroughly researched. This 320 page book covers over 1,500 rulers and royal individuals of Ancient Egypt’s pharaoh dynasties. Highly Informative, Highly illustrated and highly recommended.

The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt

This is an encyclopedic book containing information, photos, histories, site plans, diagrams and everything else concerning the temples in Egypt. Nowadays, most books give scraps of information on only the best known sites of Ancient Egypt. However, this book is most definitely a valuable research and informational source. The coverage in this book ranges from the earliest predynastic sites to Roman, Christian, and Islamic adaptations of the temples. They are many different views and theories regarding the temples of Ancient Egypt. The author explains these different views and expresses his own opinion without bias.

I was very unfortunate not too have had this book when I traveled to Egypt, because I would have visited other sites that I was unaware off at the time. I do wholly recommend this book, especially to those of you who intend to visit Egypt.

Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh

This is a well researched book concerning the life and times of the great Hatchepsut. The author states that this book is not an autobiography on Hatchesput and could not be an autobiography due to the lack of information known about the Pharaoh, or her lifetime.

However, I really enjoyed this book and in my opinion this is the best book that I have read on Hatchesput. Hatchesput is the most controversial Female Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt and although I rate this book highly, it was written for readers with reasonable too specialist knowledge on Ancient Egypt.

This book is not for the newbie of Ancient Egypt. Furthermore, I would highly recommend that you have been previously exposed to Ancient Egypt before reading this book.

This book can be purchased fairly cheaply from Amazon, so grab yourself a bargain today!!!!!!

Ramesses: Egypt's Greatest Pharaoh

Ramesses is certainly one of my favorite pharaohs to reign over Ancient Egypt. I really enjoyed this book and found it very quick and informative read. Some people have criticized this book for been a little short, but in my opinion everything you want to know from this warrior pharaoh has been covered in this book. Including the description of his tomb, his life as a warrior & head of the military, his alliance with adjacent kingdoms and his following of religion (especially his loyalty to Re). However, just as I stated above in regards to ‘Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh’ I do not recommend this book for readers that have little knowledge on Ancient Egypt.

This book is not for the newbie of Ancient Egypt. Furthermore, I would highly recommend that you have been previously exposed to Ancient Egypt before reading this book.

This book can be purchased fairly cheaply from Amazon, so grab yourself a bargain today!!!!!!

The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt

This book is a slightly weird recommendation, but quite frankly this book blew me away. Mainly because I had never read such a strong cased theory in regards to The Great Pyramid of Giza. It goes against all of the books and theories that I have ever read concerning the Great pyramids of Giza and its true purpose.

Many Egyptologist, scholars and historians denounce this book as being utter rubbish, but I personally find this book extremely intriguing and I guarantee that once you have read this you will too.

Nefertiti: Egypt's Sun Queen

She was the beloved wife of Akhenaton, who defied ancient custom by practicing monotheism and by elevating Nefertiti far above the role of subservient consort previously played by Egyptian queens. Her image has ravished Western viewers ever since a magnificent limestone bust unearthed at the royal retreat of Amarna went on display in Berlin in 1924. But frustratingly few facts are known about this woman who lived more than three millennia ago.

The history surrounding Nefertiti is so vague. So finding a decent book on Nefertiti can be rather difficult. This book was only published in 2005, so a lot of the recent findings have been published in this book. However, I must say that despite the title this book is not soley dedicated to Nefertiti. This book also portrays Akhenaten, Amenhotep III and Queen Tiy, the parents of Akhenaten. This could be a good or bad point depending on the main reason of purchasing the book, but I surely enjoyed this book and I do recommend it.

Nefertiti Lived Here

This is the first book written by archaeologist and broadcaster Mary Chubb about her adventures and experiences on various digs in the Near East and East Mediterranean. This story concerns her time at the site of Tell el Amarna in Egypt, the city of Akhenaten, in 1930. Written as a novel, but full of historical facts and real-life experiences.

I really enjoyed this novel by Mary Chubb's. The author describes very passionately the atmosphere of archaeology in the 1930s. This book is very easy to read and very humorous at times.

The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead

The Book of the Dead is the name now given to a collection of religious and magical texts known to the ancient Egyptians as The Chapter of Coming-forth by Day. Their principal aim was to secure for the deceased a satisfactory afterlife and to give him the power to leave his tomb when necessary. Copies of The Book of the Dead written on papyrus rolls were placed in the tombs of important Egyptians, each roll containing a selection of chapters. Many examples have survived from antiquity, dating mostly from c. 1500 BC to 250 BC. In this volume, the text translated by the late Dr. R. O. Faulkner is that found in the papyrus prepared for the scribe Ani which is one of the greatest treasures in the British Museum.

This is a wonderfully translated book, based on an ancient book, and good for anyone interested in ancient Egyptian life, literature, or religion. This really is a must read for anybody serious about Ancient Egypt. Enclosed within the book is a glossary which makes this book ideal reading for anybody interested in Ancient Egypt. It is very easy to read and very easy to understand.

In my opinion this book is well priced especially if purchased used.

A must have!!!!!!!!

Book of the Dead: Hieroglyphic Transcript and Translation into English of the Papyrus of Ani

This is a cheaper alternative to ‘The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead’. It is a later release from a different author. However, in comparison to Raymond O. Faulkner’s Book of the Dead I found this less enjoyable and harder to read. This book does have some very informative chapters and is certainly the cheaper alternative (up to half price) but I would fully recommend Raymond O. Faulkner’s: Book of the Dead in preference to this title.

Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs

This title shows deep insight into the Ancient Egyptian language and culture. This title will give the reader all the relevant knowledge on the ancient Egyptian language in an extremely educational manner.

Exercises occur at the end of each chapter and these exercises are very relevant to the present and previous chapters. If you're serious about hieroglyphs then this book is a must read, I find it more extensive and certainly a lot easier to read than Gardiner’s 'Egyptian grammar', and in my personal opinion this is the best book written to date on hieroglyphs.

It also offers scholars of linguistics a complete grammatical description of the classical language of ancient Egypt. This book is a little expensive but it is worth every penny.

The Keys of Egypt: The Race to Read the Hieroglyphs

A gifted bookseller's son born in Revolutionary France, Champollion was to become "gripped by energetic enthusiasm" for Egypt. By the age of 12, he was studying several ancient languages, and, amid a "wave of Egyptomania," he would beat rivals to discover the key to deciphering hieroglyphs. If this was a race, it was a marathon. The breakthrough came after "20 years of obsessive hard work," not through the quick-fix solution often thought to have been provided by the Rosetta stone. The Keys of Egypt details Champollion's life and work, which were hampered by politics, poverty, and an almost hypochondriacal series of health problems. Its sources include letters and journals, the authors having undertaken researches in major libraries and museums.

I really enjoyed this title, but this is a recommendation that is really aimed at readers that enjoy a good novel, with a little bit of history and the eagerness to learn the way in which hieroglyphs were deciphered. This is a good combination of the biography of Champollion and the description of the process of deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs.

I really do not want to give too much away in this review. So, I shall conclude this review by saying I found this book gripping and highly enjoyable.

The Lost Tomb: The Most Extraordinary Archaeological Discovery of Our Time - The Burial Site

Working for the American university in Cairo in 1988, Kent Weeks embarked on an archeological dig into KV5, the sparsely explored fifth tomb in the Valley of the Kings, burial ground of Egypt's major Pharaohs. In 1995, he discovered the T-shaped burial complex of Ramses II's 50 sons. Weeks's account of this historic event is filled with a sense of awe and wonder.

"[I]n my imagination," he writes, recalling a vision of the statue of Osiris, god of the afterlife, "I could see the ancient funerals that took place three thousand years ago. I could hear ancient priests chanting prayers and shaking tambourines ... I could smell incense and feel priestly robes brush my arm as the funeral procession moved slowly past. For an instant I felt transported back in time: it was 1275 BCE and this was ancient Thebes."

This title is based on arguably the most important discovery since Tutankhamun. This title was based on the journals of Dr Kent Weeks, an American archaeologist, who stumbled upon a crypt fit for 50 princes - the sons of Rameses II - which had remained undisturbed for 2,000 years. I really do like this book and have read it several times. I recommend this book not just to lovers of Egypt but to lovers of history.

BUY THIS MAGNIFICENT BOOK TODAY!!!!!!