Egypt, How A Lost Civilization Was Rediscovered

I am a dedicated amateur Egyptologist who has attended many night-school courses and who has been lucky enough to visit Egypt several times.

Having watched the BBC TV series “Egypt” I was keen to read this book. I was not disappointed. There are many excellent books about Egyptology and several excellent books about the discovery of Ancient Egypt, but this is the only one I have found which combines the two.

I was very pleased that it included a wider range of Egyptologists than the television series (Flinders Petrie, for example, is included in the book, which makes up for him not being in the television series) and that it excluded some of the more speculative TV moments (like the “romance” between Howard Carter and Lady Evelyn!).

This book is well-written and informative. I found a good deal of information which was new to me, but it would also be an excellent introduction to the subject for a newcomer.

Fantastic! (15/17 people found this helpful)

A fascinating insight into Egypt's history and archaeology. I was given this book as a christmas present and having watched the BBC series I was keen to learn more.

The book is divided into sections each covering a different aspect of Ancient Egypt's 'rediscovery' - The Explorers, The Archaeologists and so on. The narrative, which is engaging from the outset, generally follows a linear time pattern, with some crossover (e.g. with Belzoni and Champollion), and proceeds to the present day.

This book is very well written and it was hard to stop reading at times. There are three sections of photographs dispersed throughout and this brings me to my only criticism - there could have been more photographs towards the end as some of the descriptions do require more than imagination.

An Egyptological Classic (13/14 people found this helpful)

I watched the recent BBC television series ‘Egypt’ with great pleasure – despite a few minor quibbles I thought it was both serious in intent and extremely entertaining. This book of the series by Joyce Tyldesley is even better. Rather than concentrating on only three individuals (Carter, Belzoni and Champollion) as the TV series did, Dr Tyldesley gives a much broader, fuller and more balanced account of the history of Egyptology from its early beginnings up to the present day.

Carter, Belzoni and Champollion are given the recognition they deserve, but so are other giants of the subject such as Lepsius and Petrie, and the discoveries of current Egyptologists (of whom the best known is perhaps Dr Zahi Hawass) are also set in their historical context.

I found this overview of the history of archaeological activity in Egypt fascinating, useful and well-written. There are plenty of books describing the history of Egypt, but this is the first one I have come across which gives such a succinct account of the subject itself. It deserves to become a classic of Egyptological writing.

Great Subject - Unsatisfying Read (10/22 people found this helpful)

Browsing in a post Christmas sale I found this book had a chapter dedicated to a historian about whom I wanted to know more - so I snapped it up. The bonus was to be that it would begin to build my knowledge of Egyptology.

Reading the book did a bit of both. It covers the ‘discovery’ of ancient Egypt over the last 200 years and I now have a much better picture of my admired historian who was also a distinguished Egyptologist.

Alas, my anticipated enjoyment of the book and the account it had to give was significantly curtailed. The author intruded unnecessarily. At first it was simply a poor introductory analysis of the fascination of Egypt. Then there were occasional flashes of her worldview (eg the introduction of Christianity to Egypt was a greater cultural disaster than the destruction of the library at Alexandria!), and sometimes doubtful accuracy (How does she know the average English male in the 1800s was less than 5’ tall?). And then there is the remarkably sloppy passage about the difference between transparent and translucent.

All in all lots of interesting information here, but in places it seems accuracy is trumped by opinion and the prose is, at times, indifferent.

The historian about whom I wanted to know more? The formidable, and marvellously named, Flinders Petrie. But I should have passed over this book in the sale and sought a fullscale biography.

Interesting Read (11/13 people found this helpful)

Having recently started reading books about different aspects of history, this was a book that caught my eye.

I wasn't dissapointed either, to give you an overview of Egypt, and an idea of what it was like, then I think this is a very good starting place, it's well written and a fairly easy read for a complete Egyption novice like myself.

It has inspired me to find books that go into more detail, about some of the pioneers of Eygptology.

Egypt, How A Lost Civilization Was Rediscovered

Joyce A. Tyldesley

Reader Reviews:

Excellent Overview, well told (15/15 people found this helpful)

Fantastic! (15/17 people found this helpful)

An Egyptological Classic (13/14 people found this helpful)

Great Subject - Unsatisfying Read (10/22 people found this helpful)

Interesting Read (11/13 people found this helpful)

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