Barry J. Kemp - Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

This fully revised and updated third edition of the bestselling Ancient Egypt seeks to identify what gave ancient Egypt its distinctive and enduring characteristics, ranging across material culture, the mindset of its people, and social and economic factors.

In this volume, Barry J. Kemp identifies the ideas by which the Egyptians organized their experience of the world and explains how they maintained a uniform style in their art and architecture across three thousand years, whilst accommodating substantial changes in outlook. The underlying aim is to relate ancient Egypt to the broader mainstream of our understanding of how all human societies function.

Source material is taken from ancient written documents, while the book also highlights the contribution that archaeology makes to our understanding of Egyptian culture and society. It uses numerous case studies, illustrating them with artwork expressly prepared from specialist sources. Broad ranging yet impressively detailed, the book is an indispensable text for all students of ancient Egypt and for the general reader.

Barry J. Kemp is Emeritus Professor of Egyptology (University of Cambridge), Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research (University of Cambridge) and director of the Amarna Project.

Ancient Egypt

Anatomy of a Civilization

Third Edition

Barry J. Kemp

Contents

I am indebted to the editorial staff at Routledge for urging on me, for the second time, a revised edition, and for patience in waiting for me to complete it long after I should have. They provided feedback from colleagues which, in particular, persuaded me to restore a rewritten chapter on Amarna in place of the could not have been written without the Amarna expedition which was, for many years, a project of the Egypt Exploration Society and is now, as the Amarna Project, supported by the Amarna Trust and (in the USA) the Amarna Research Foundation. Working at Amarna with the members of the expedition team (whose names would fill more than a page) and with the local people has given me a perspective on life in the past and in the present which otherwise I would have missed and been poorer for. Following my retirement from my teaching post at the University of Cambridge I have been greatly indebted when in Cambridge to the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research for continuing to welcome me to its research community, to Wolfson College for its hospitality, to the Haddon Library and Cambridge University Library (a true cathedral of knowledge) for access to their collections, and likewise when in Cairo to the library of the American Research Center in Egypt. My wife, Miriam, has constantly provided much pragmatic support and wisdom as I have worked (sometimes struggled) to complete this revision.

For illustrations thanks are due to the following for permission to reproduce photographs: Daniel Polz and the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo: are by Miriam Bertram. Thames & Hudson (with the permission of the authors) allowed me to see a proof of their forthcoming book, M. Lehner and Z. Hawass, Giza and the Pyramids (now published, late 2017).

Abbreviations of works (other than journal articles) cited more than once in the notes or captions

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