Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction

Its less about Egyptian history, and more about the historians who studied Egyptian history. Not of the same quality as many of the other short introduction books. Not what I expected, possibly useful if you really don't know *anything* and really want to know about the Europeans to studied Egyptian history--but aren't *really* interested in learning much about Egyptian history. In fact, even as I write this, I changed my mind from "its okay" to "I don't it". It just isn't satisfying at all.

The title of this excellent entry in an excellent series should be 'Egyptology', as it is more about the study of ancient Egypt than the history itself. At 190 pages, it is a little longer than many entries in this series, but the final 30 of those pages are References, Timeline and so on, which provide a good springboard for further study.Pharaonic Egypt was Earth's first great empire and it lasted for 3 millennia. The author examines the way in which that civilization has been perceived, interpreted and mythologized by, among others, Victorians seeking verification of Biblical stories and by modern, popular culture.Ian Shaw writes well and comes across as an erudite and objective scholar. He has not used this book as an opportunity to put forward any unorthodoxy of his own, and has not been afraid to include many quotations from other Egyptologists. All of this makes the book a perfect introduction to this fascinating subject.

It's a great book, I love ancient Egypt, I read all books about them. This one is very good

Well written, historically accurate. It does a good job of avoiding taking a side for political reasons and simply looks at the facts.

This is part of the OUP's "Very Short Introduction" series of slim volumes (each would fit in a jacket pocket) covering a wide variety of topics, and written by an expect in the relevant field aimed at the general reader. Each is about 100+ pages long (this one is nearly 200 pages), complete with maps, illustrations, a bibliography and an index. This one has a glossary also.I’m a fan of the series, having read two dozen of them. One criticism I do have is that sometimes their titles can be misleading, as it is in this case. This work isn’t a history of ancient Egypt, nor is it a description of that civilization. Rather it’s more a history of Egyptology and, as far as I can see – which isn’t very far in my case – quite a good one.(The one error I spotted in the text is that the still on page 155 is labelled as coming from ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’ whereas the film is simply tilted ‘Cleopatra’. There may be other errors of which I’m unaware).The work has 9 chapters.Chapter 1 begins with a description of the ‘Narmer Palette’, an object from early Egyptian history that the author uses throughout the book as a starting point for a given topic. He then goes on to describe how Egypt appeared to Greek, Roman and Biblical writers.Chapter 2 covers the development of Egyptology.Chapter 3 covers the building up of chronologies.Chapter 4 covers the development of hieroglyphs.Chapter 5 covers kingship.Chapter 6 covers issues of race – and Afrocentrism – and gender.Chapter 7 covers mummification, where sadly the illustration is the head of Seti I and not the body of Queen Tera from Blood from the Mummy's Tomb. Surely too high a price to pay for authenticity.Chapter 8 covers Egyptian religion.Chapter 9 is a highly entertaining one covering Egyptomania. Here the pyramids make their appearance as does Akhenaten and the femmes fatale Nefertiti and Cleopatra VII, a face without a queen and a queen without a face.I was going to give this book 4 stars but seeing a number of reviews by people who were misled by the title I’m dropping it to 3.

Book Review: Ancient Egypt - A Very Short Introduction by Ian ShawThis is a small paperback book of 192 pages with some b/w photographs and various line drawings which is published by Oxford University Press and is one of a series of small introductory books on a vast array of subjects (a list is provided at the start of the book).The book, although supposedly a very short introduction to Egyptology, is indeed compact and covers a lot of ground. The book opens with a detailed discussion of the Narmer Palette, a carved flat stone which was discovered in 1898 by two British Egyptologists. This Palette has been dated at about 3,000 BC, which is the apparent beginning of the 1st Dynasty of ancient Egypt. There follows a discussion on how the ancient Greeks and Romans viewed Egypt. A discussion of the Bible and ancient Egypt then follows - it appears that definable references in the Bible to ancient Egypt don't appear until the 1st Millennium BC when there are a number of specific allusions to the Egyptians, especially in regard to battles against the Assyrians and the Persians. There appears to be no mention of Moses by the Egyptians (and he has never appeared in any hieroglyphs as far as I am aware despite his supposed high status in Egyptian society according to the Bible). Attempts have been made by others to associate Akhenaten (Amenophis IV) with Moses, however there are no other aspects of this pharaoh’s life or indeed within his religious cult known as Aten (worship of the sun) that resemble the biblical account of Moses. Egyptologists generally regard the Moses and Exodus stories as mishmashes of stories which probably originated in distant memories of the expulsions of the Hyksos period, when Egypt expelled Asiatic rulers from northern Egypt. One Egyptologist mentioned in the book regards the Moses- Exodus story as a convenient use of folk tales to allow the Israelites to define themselves as a distinct nation.There is also in this book a long account of the history of Egyptology, including further comments on the Narmer Palette. Another chapter deals with the most important kings and queens of ancient Egypt. Later chapters deal with mummies, gods, pyramids and discussions on Cleopatra VII and Nefertiti - Nefertiti is a face without a queen, while Cleopatra is a queen without a face! It appears that Cleopatra in real life looked nothing like Elizabeth Taylor of the Hollywood movies but was more Greek than Egyptian on appearance.The book has an extensive further reading and reference list as well as a list of useful websites, a glossary of main terms, a time line, and finally an index at the back of the book. I read it in a few nights. Its a good introduction for the high school student, layperson and first year university student. Highly recommended.Dr Trevor J. HawkeswoodAuthor: Beetles of Australia (1987), Spiders of Australia (2003), Light and Dark (2013)

This book is not about Ancient Egyptian history at all - the entire book is dedicated to Egyptology and archaeology. The book focuses on trying to explain to the reader the basics of this ancient civilization through an analysis of the Narmer Palette, yet this fails miserably, boring the reader to sleep through use of academic jargon and constant discussion about Egypt's archaeological history. I guess this makes it good bedside reading after all...Instead of summarising the main leaders and stages of Egyptian history, allowing the reader to obtain a basic understanding of Ancient Egypt before introducing them to the various debates on the subject in the academic world, the author immediately launches the reader (who like myself supposedly knows nothing about Ancient Egypt) into a debate about which Pharaoh expelled the Jews in Exodus.Overall, this book is not worthy of the title 'very short introduction' as I was more clueless on the subject of Ancient Egyptian history after reading it than before.

The Very Short Introductions are a major educational resource. There are presently over 500 small books covering a very wide range of subjects. Although short, the Introductions are substantial in content. Everyone would benefit from reading these books to broaden their knowledge and understanding in diverse areas of life. Perseverance with some subjects may be required but be prepared to be surprised, enlightened and enriched.

Great service, the team even helped me with a delivery address mistake I made!Book was in excellent condition.What more do I need to say?

says what it is- good intro text book

Very interesting book on Egypt