Books on Ancient Egypt?

by SciveKay

Hi all, my girlfriend's birthday is coming up and she's been interested in that time period recently, so I thought it'd be nice to gift her a book about it. I don't really know where to look for recommendations for history books and I wouldn't know which ones are good or bad eitherways, so I figured I'd just ask. She's currently studying a history degree, so the book doesn't need to be entry level, she knows her stuff.

I hope this is the right sub for a question like this, if not be sure to let me know which one would be right.

Koalaonion310

Hello, Egyptology Student here.

Here are some books that might be of interest:

Language and Grammar:

  • Gardiner, A. (1957) "Egyptian Grammar: Being an introduction to the study of Hieroglyphs", London.

Mummies:

  • Ikram, S. (1998) "The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for eternity", London.
  • Brier, B. (1994) "Egyptian Mummies: Unraveling the Secrets of Ancient Art", London.

General:

  • Wilkinson, R. (Ed.) (2008) "Egyptology Today", Cambridge.
  • Brier, R. (1980) "Ancient Egyptian Magic".
  • Schliesser, B. (Ed.)(2021) "Alexandria", Tübingen.

I can direct you to more reading if nessecary. I hope this can be of use.

samsu-ditana

Late to the party, but my favorite egypt-related reading in undergrad (I focused on Mesopotamia) was Barry Kemp's work on Amarna . I believe its "The city of Akhenaten and Nefertiti : Amarna and its people" that I remember in particular; Kemp directed excavations there for Cambridge for 3 decades.

I loved his way of explaining things from arcane theology to how you got bread--does a great job making the social history come alive--and am sure that any of his books (he also has a survey "Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilisation") would be a good read.