Ancient Egypt

 

The next Genre Reading Group meeting is on Tuesday, July 27th at 6:30pm and we’ll be back in person!  We’ll be in the large Community Meeting Room where there’s plenty of space to spread out. 

A Zoom option is available, simply select it when you register for the program here: https://emmetoneal.libnet.info/event/4597971

July’s topic is the author, Elizabeth Berg.  Read any of her work and come tell us about it.  There is a display up at the 2nd floor service desk if you’d like to browse.  You can also peruse the catalog and reserve books from home by clicking here.

Tonight we talked about the wonders of Ancient Egypt!

Nova: Animal Mummies

From baboons to bulls, crocodiles to cows, a vast menagerie of animal mummies lie buried in Egyptian catacombs. Hi-tech imaging is now revealing what's inside the bundles and the strange role that animals played in ancient Egyptian beliefs.

Egyptomania: Our 3,000 Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs by Bob Brief

For forty years, Bob Brier, one of the world's foremost Egyptologists, has been amassing one of the largest collections of Egyptian memorabilia and seeking to understand the pull of Ancient Egypt on our world today. In this original and groundbreaking book, with twenty-four pages of color photos from the author's collection, he explores our three-thousand-year-old fixation with recovering Egyptian culture and its meaning. He traces our enthrallment with the mummies that seem to have cheated death and the pyramids that as if they will last forever. Drawing on his personal collection--from Napoleon's twenty volume Egypt encyclopedia to Howard Carter's letters written from the Valley of the Kings as he was excavating--this is an inventive and mesmerizing tour of how an ancient civilization endures in ours today.

Pyramids of Ancient Egypt: The History of Antiquities Most Famous Monuments by Phaistos Publishers

The Great Pyramid is only one of many pyramids at Giza, and people still associate Egypt with pyramids due to these massive monuments, but many are unaware of the long tradition of pyramid building within Egypt. There are many more pyramids in Egypt than just those at Giza - Lepsius’ expedition listed 67 “pyramids” throughout Egypt, all listed in his Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien. Some of these monuments have since been relabeled as mastabas or other monuments, but many represented initial attempts at building pyramids by some of Egypt’s earliest kings, offering testament to the fact that the Egyptians spent several centuries trying to master the process of building such majestic monuments.

Ancient Egypt by Edward Macuski

Whether you want to learn more about Tutankhamun, whose tomb was discovered in the year 1922 and filled with gold and riches, or Cleopatra the VII, the famed last queen of Egypt, you will have the opportunity in this book to learn all about some of the most prominent rulers of Ancient Egypt. As well as the history of the pyramids, temples, and religion, how the Nile was an integral part to survival, the Egyptian army, and battle practices, how transportation and trade affected life, the daily life of ancient Egyptians, as well as their mythology, time periods, and dynasties.

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark

Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer.

So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world forty years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage.

Alongside her Ministry colleagues and a familiar person from her past, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city―or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters (Book 1 of the Amelia Peabody series)

Amelia Peabody, that indomitable product of the Victorian age, embarks on her debut Egyptian adventure armed with unshakable self-confidence, a journal to record her thoughts, and, of course, a sturdy umbrella. On her way to Cairo, Amelia rescues young Evelyn Barton-Forbes, who has been abandoned by her scoundrel lover. Together the two women sail up the Nile to an archeological site run by the Emerson brothers-the irascible but dashing Radcliffe and the amiable Walter. Soon their little party is increased by one-one mummy that is, and a singularly lively example of the species.

The Keys of Egypt: The Obsession to Decipher Egyptian Hieroglyphs by Lesley and Roy Adkins

Chronicles the twenty-year attempt of French linguist Jean-Francois Champollion to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics despite poverty, ill health, competition by English physician Thomas Young, and political enemies.

Murder in the Place of Anubis by Lynda Robinson

The body of a much-hated scribe has been found in the sacred place of embalming, and the resulting outrage could threaten the reign of Tutankhamun. So the boy king tasks his investigator, Lord Meren, to look into the crime. The quest will take Meren into the worlds of nobles, slaves, and schemers in the royal court—all while he fights to keep the teenaged pharaoh safe from those who would take advantage of this crisis . . .

Lady of the Reeds by Pauline Gedge

In ancient Egypt, an intelligent, ambitious woman named Thu, leaves her native village aboard the boat of a prophet and eventually becomes a powerful concubine of Ramses III.

The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry edited by William Kelly Simpson

This anthology of ancient Egyptian literature includes annotated classics such as the story of Sinuhe, religious texts -- including Penitential Hymns -- historical texts, and writings from the late literature of the Demotic period at the end of classical Egyptian history, including the Romance of Setna Khaemuas and the Mummies.

Searching for the Lost Tombs of Egypt by Chris Nauton

Tombs, mummies, and funerary items make up a significant portion of the archeological remains that survive ancient Egypt and have come to define the popular perception of Egyptology. Despite the many sensational discoveries in the last century, such as the tomb of Tutankhamun, the tombs of some of the most famous individuals in the ancient world―Imhotep, Nefertiti, Alexander the Great, and Cleopatra―have not yet been found.

Archeologist Chris Naunton examines the famous pharaohs, their achievements, the bling they might have been buried with, the circumstances in which they were buried, and why those circumstances may have prevented archeologists from finding these tombs.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra's supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff 's is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

The Murder of King Tut: The Plot to Kill the Child King by James Patterson and Martin Dugard

James Patterson and Martin Dugard dig through stacks of evidence-X-rays, Carter's files, forensic clues, and stories told through the ages-to arrive at their own account of King Tut's life and death. The result is an exhilarating true crime tale of intrigue, passion, and betrayal that casts fresh light on the oldest mystery of all.

Christ the Lord Out of Egypt by Anne Rice

Having completed the two cycles of legend to which she has devoted her career so far, Anne Rice gives us now her most ambitious and courageous book, a novel about the early years of CHRIST THE LORD, based on the Gospels and on the most respected New Testament scholarship.

Out of the Black Land by Kerry Greenwood

Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt is peaceful and prosperous under the dual rule of the Pharaohs Amenhotep III and IV, until the younger Pharaoh begins to dream new and terrifying dreams.

Ptah-hotep, a young peasant boy studying to be a scribe, wants to live a simple life. But Amenhotep IV appoints him Great Royal Scribe, and he is soon surrounded by bitterly envious rivals and enemies.

The child-princess Mutnodjme sees her beautiful sister Nefertiti married off to the impotent young Amenhotep. But Nefertiti must bear royal children.

The Pharaoh's shrinking army under the daring teenage General Horemheb guards the Land of the Nile from enemies on every border. But a far greater menace impends.

The newly renamed Akhnaten plans to suppress the worship of all other gods in the Black Land. His horrified court soon realize that the Pharaoh is not merely deformed, but irretrievably mad; and that the greatest danger to the Empire is in the royal palace itself.

Ancient Top 10: Secrets of Egypt

The discoveries of Egypt have been among the highest profile archaeological finds in history. Find out which Top 10 secret has had the biggest impact on our view of Ancient Egypt in Season 1, Episode 7, "Secrets of Egypt". For more from Ancient Top 10 and other great HISTORY shows: http://histv.co/SubscribeHistoryYT

Secrets of the Great Pyramid by Bob Brier and Jean-Pierre Houdin

The Secret of the Great Pyramid is a thrilling intellectual adventure story about the most exciting discovery in Egyptology in decades. Bob Brier, along with French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin, tells the remarkable true story of Houdin’s obsession with Egypt’s Great Pyramid, one of the Seven Wonders of the World: how, in an ancient agrarian society not long removed from the Stone Age, such a remarkable structure could have been envisioned and constructed. At once the story of Houdin’s determined search for answers to the puzzle that have eluded scientist and Egyptologists for centuries and a fascinating history of the planning and building of the magnificent edifice, The Secret of the Great Pyramid is an extraordinary work that puts the mystery to rest, once and for all.