Kategoria BISAC: History >> Ancient - Egypt

This book offers a large scale reassessment of the function of Roman emperor over three centuries (from Augustus to Constantine) and of the social realities of this exercise of power. Concentrating on the patterns of communication between the emperor and his subjects, the author shows that such communications were normally initiated by the subjects - whether grouped in cities or other associations, or individually and that the emperor fulfilled his role primarily by making responses to them or giving decisions or verdicts between them.

The book casts new light on a number of detailed...

The energy devoted by the ancient Egyptians to their tombs is legendary. The pyramids of Gizeh and the tomb of Tutankhamun are just two very spectacular examples, but no previous book has sought to use the tens of thousands of tombs excavated in Egypt, dating from 5000 BC to AD 200, across all classes of society, to build up a broad picture of burial as practised across the millennia. In this fascinating treatment, Wolfram Grajetzki sets out to remove some widespread misconceptions. Many imagine that few tombs survived undisturbed into modern times, but this is simply not true. In addition...

Performance and Drama in Ancient Egypt examines archaeological and textual materials for evidence of performance-based activities in Egypt from the beginning of the historic period until the later Roman Empire. It takes as its starting point enactments of performance texts from the Graeco-Roman period done by the author's students and examines the widespread vogue for re-enactments on archaeological sites and in the mass media. Performance and Drama in Ancient Egypt presents an historically-based survey of ancient Egyptian performance activities that relates them to other cultural and...

For the ancient Egyptians, the Middle Kingdom (c. 2000-1700 BC) was a classical period of art, history and literature. The Twelfth Dynasty was one of the strongest ever to rule on the banks of the Nile: some of its kings were later worshipped as local gods, and were made famous by classical Greek authors. Yet Egyptologists tend not to look beyond the extraordinary royal sculpture and literary masterpieces of the time. Although the picture is fragmentary, as with any archaeological record, the last two hundred years of exploration and excavation have revealed much of the splendour of the...

The names of ancient Egyptian kings such as Cheops, Akhenaten, and Ramesses II have become part of popular culture. Yet, for all the tombs and statuary that have survived over the millennia, surprisingly little remains that speaks to the workings of government, cabals in the palace, political factions, and the private lives of the royal families. In The Book of the Pharaohs, Pascal Vernus and Jean Yoyotte offer an indispensable, basic reference to the full human reality of royal Egypt.

The Book of the Pharaohs is an encyclopedia made up of short essays on the...

The gods were everywhere in Ancient Egypt. Represented by statues, bas-reliefs, and funerary paintings, they even walked among the Egyptians in the person of Pharaoh, considered to be a living god, son of the divine Ra. What better way to understand that distant culture than by becoming familiar with the people who served those gods? Using as his sources the Egyptian texts and the testimony of classical authors, Serge Sauneron illuminates the role of the priesthood in Ancient Egypt.

He recreates the system of thought of one of the great civilizations of antiquity, addressing such...

Lionel Casson's encyclopedic study is the first of its kind to use underwater archaeological data to refine and area of scholarship that had, for the most part, relied on ancient texts and graphic representations. Tracing the history of early ships and seamanship from pre-dynastic Egypt to the Roman empire, from skiffs and barges to huge oared warships and royal yachts, Casson describes not only the ships themselves, but also the make-up and training of the crews, placement of weaponry, how cargo was stored, methods of navigation, harbor facilities, and the ways ships were named.

Worship of the Egyptian goddess Isis dates as far back as 2500 B.C. and extended at least until the fifth century A.D. throughout the Roman world. The importance of her cult is attested to in Apuleius's Golden Ass, and evidence of its influence has been found in places as far apart as Afghanistan and Portugal, the Black Sea and northern England. The first study to document the extent and complexity of the cult's influence on Graeco-Roman and early Christian culture, R. E. Witt's acclaimed Isis in the Ancient World is now available in paperback.