Ancient Egypt - Bibliography

There are many sources of information about ancient Egypt. For example, Timelines and many other web sites index Egyptology resources on the Net. But for in-depth information, books are still your best bet:

For Egyptian history, Barbara Watterson, The Egyptians, Blackwell, 1997, is a pleasure to read. It combines modern scholarship with famous anecdotes from the classical Greek and Roman writers. Peter A. Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames and Hudson, 1994, presents a reign-by-reign illustrated narrative. John Baines and Jaromir Malek, The Cultural Atlas of the World: Ancient Egypt, Stonehenge Press (Time-Life), 1984, is an excellent gazeteer.

Among books about Egyptian art, one might begin with the lavishly illustrated Egyptian Treasures from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Francesco Tiradrilli (ed.), Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1999. . Also worthwhile, and still available in many public libraries, is Great Museums of the World: The Cairo Museum , Newsweek 1969. An essential book is Richard H. Wilkinson, Reading Egyptian Art, Thames and Hudson 1992. Another standard reference is Cecil Aldred, Ancient Egyptian Art, Transatlantic, 1974 .

A handy introduction to the gods of the ancient (Western) world is Peter Clayton, Great Figures Of Mythology, Crescent Books, 1990. In this beautifully illustrated book, Clayton (who also wrote the Chronicle of the Pharaohs mentioned above) covers the major gods of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Europe, and the Near East. A more in-depth reference, well-illustrated and very informative, is Richard Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson, 2003.

A good introduction to ancient Egyptian language and writing is Mark Collier and Bill Manley, How To Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs, University of California Press, 1998. For those who want more depth, a recent comprehensive textbook and reference is James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian, Cambridge University Press, 1999. A recommended Egyptian-English dictionary is Raymond O. Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Griffith Institute, 1996. Serious students will also want to purchase David Shennum, English-Egyptian Index of Faulkner's Concise Dictionary, Undena Publications, 1977.