Although Herodot's dictum that "Egypt is a gift of the Nile" is proverbial, there has been only scant attention to the way the river impacted on ancient Egyptian society. Egyptologists frequently focus on the textual and iconographic record, whereas archaeologists and earth scientists approach the issue from the perspective of natural sciences. The contributions in this volume bridge this gap by analyzing the river both as a natural and as a cultural phenomenon. Adopting an approach of cultural ecology, it addresses issues like ancient land use, administration and taxation, irrigation, and religious concepts.

A profile of ancient Egypt during the second millennium B.C.E. explores the development of Egyptian rites and mythology, religion, architecture, and political intrigues of such pharoahs as Hatshepsut, Rameses, and Tutankhamun.

The author begins with a history of ancient Egypt and a list of its kings, and then plunges into the daily life of the people from the cradle to the grave and beyond - their manners and customs, trade and commerce, their literature and religious beliefs. Dr. Budge examines the Egyptian family and school, the furniture, jewelry, food and drink of the household, Egyptian society, Egyptians at work and play, the Egyptian religions and its temples, its numerous gods and priests, Egyptian writing, literature and knowledge of medicine, astrology and alchemy. The book concludes with the Egyptian dead, Heaven and Hell, and the future life.

This volume presents the proceedings of the symposium and workshop on ancient Egypt and the Environment held at Quest University and the University of British Columbia (Canada), April 2-3, 2017. The contributions in this volume include studies on the cultural and environmental impact of the Nile on the people of Egypt. The chapter authors use palaeoclimatic and geomorphological data to examine and challenge traditional approaches to the study of the Egyptian environment, demonstrating the value of ecologically focused forms of Egyptological research. The publication also includes a manifesto by the authors outlining practical strategies to incorporate environmental data in the study of Egypt, as well as an appendix providing sources relating to the ancient Egyptian environment. Contributing authors are: Thomas Schneider, Pearce Paul Creasman, Judith Bunbury, Joanne Rowland, Nadine Moeller, Angus Graham, Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia, Leslie Anne Warden, Christine L. Johnson, Leesha Cessna, and Willeke Wendrich. The volume is dedicated to Prof. Manfred Bietak.

From Herodotus's day to the present political upheavals, the steady flow of the Nile has been Egypt's heartbeat. It has shaped its geography, controlled its economy and moulded its civilisation. The same stretch of water which conveyed Pharaonic battleships, Ptolemaic grain ships, Roman troop-carriers and Victorian steamers today carries modern-day tourists past bankside settlements in which rural life – fishing, farming, flooding – continues much as it has for millennia. At this most critical juncture in the country's history, foremost Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson takes us on a journey up the Nile, north from Lake Victoria, from Cataract to Cataract, past the Aswan Dam, to the delta. The country is a palimpsest, every age has left its trace: as we pass the Nilometer on the island of Elephantine which since the days of the Pharaohs has measured the height of Nile floodwaters to predict the following season's agricultural yield and set the parameters for the entire Egyptian economy, the wonders of Giza which bear the scars of assault by nineteenth-century archaeologists and the modern-day unbridled urban expansion of Cairo – and in Egypt's earliest art (prehistoric images of fish-traps carved into cliffs) and the Arab Spring (fought on the bridges of Cairo) – the Nile is our guide to understanding the past and present of this unique, chaotic, vital, conservative yet rapidly changing land.

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.