Toby A. H. Wilkinson

In The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt Toby Wilkinson, one of the leading Egyptologists of his generation, goes behind the dazzling mask of Ancient Egypt to make the story of one of the world's greatest (and in terms of longevity, most successful) civilisations accessible to the general reader. From the pharaohs at the apex to the slaves at the base of the pyramids they built, the unifying theme will be the darker side of pharaonic civilisation- the relentless propaganda that infiltrated every aspect of public life, the cut-throat politics that lay behind the mask of unchanging monarchy and the brutality and repression that underpinned royal authority will all be fully examined in this major history that will draw on the latest research, including the author's own original fieldwork.

The History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra

The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt

It was Herodotus who first called Egypt "the gift of the river." Now renowned Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson takes us along the Nile to reveal how it continues to hold the key to understanding the earliest of the great ancient civilizations as well as the volatile and rapidly modernizing country that is Egypt today. Wilkinson's narrative takes us from the river's mystical sources (the Blue Nile which rises in Ethiopia, and the White Nile coursing from majestic Lake Victoria); to Thebes, with its Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and Luxor Temple; the fertile Delta; Giza, home of the Great Pyramid, the sole surviving Wonder of the Ancient World; and finally, to the pulsating capital city of Cairo, where the Arab Spring erupted on the bridges over the Nile. Along the way, he introduces us to mysterious and fabled characters--the gods and pharaohs, emperors and empresses, who joined their fate to the Nile and gained immortality; the adventurers, archaeologists, and historians who have all fallen under its spell. With matchless erudition and storytelling skill, through both panoramas and close-ups, Wilkinson brings millennia of history into view.--

a journey downriver through Egypt's past and present

The Nile

Early Dynastic Egypt spans the five centuries preceding the construction of the Great Pyramid at Giza. This was the formative period of ancient Egyptian civilization, and it witnessed the creation of a distinctive culture that was to endure for 3,000 years. This book examines the background to that great achievement, the mechanisms by which it was accomplished, and the character of life in the Nile valley during the first 500 years of Pharaonic rule. The results of over thirty years of international scholarship and excavation are presented in a single highly illustrated volume. It traces the re-discovery of Early Dynastic Egypt, explains how the dynasties established themselves in government and concludes by examining the impact of the early state on individual communities and regions.

Early Dynastic Egypt

Julian Platt

In 1907/08 Ferdinand Platt (known to his family as Ferdy) traveled to Egypt as personal physician to the ailing 8th Duke of Devonshire--one of the giant statesmen of the late Victorian age--and his family party, recounting his adventure in letters to his young wife in England. Throughout the journey Ferdy not only reported on the sights of the country around him, with his amateur Egyptologist's eye, and the people he met along the way (including Howard Carter and Winston Churchill) but also recorded his private thoughts and intimate observations of a formal and stratified society, soon to be witness to its own extinction.

An Edwardian Journey on the Nile

Aristocrats and Archaeologists

Traces the history of Egyptian civilization, which began in the Eastern Desert over six thousand years ago.

Toby A. H. Wilkinson

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