The Pyramid Age represents the first of several highpoints in ancient Egypt’s long history. But critical questions remain about the period, its social structure and economic organization, and the long-term implications of its artistic achievements. On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Journal of Egyptian History, The University of British Columbia, Harvard University, and Brill Academic Publishers, Boston, held a conference at Harvard University on April 26, 2012. A distinguished group of Egyptological scholars from around the world gathered to consider new perspectives on the Pyramid Age; the results are presented here.

Fifteen "slab stelae" and stela fragments were found set into the exterior walls of Giza mastaba tombs in the reign of Khufu and his successors. Taken as a group, they provide one of the most important sources of Egyptian artistic and historical documents of the early Old Kingdom; several stelae even preserve remarkable amounts of color after nearly 5,000 years. This publication presents a fresh interpretation of the Giza stelae, with new color photography, "digital epigraphy" facsimile line drawings, new translations, original discovery photographs, and recent color images taken at Giza. In a departure from traditional scholarly works, the book is published in full color, with numerous charts and catalogues, information on all Giza tombs with slab stelae emplacements, the history of their excavation, previous scholarly research, and comparative and interpretive chapters. Appendixes include both color and line-drawing palaeographies of all hieroglyphs appearing on the stelae, and a collection of the enigmatic "linen lists" that adorn the Giza stelae and many other archaic and Old Kingdom monuments. Indexes complete the volume.

A lushly illustrated gazetteer of the archaeological sites of southern Egypt and northern Sudan and named a 2012 American Publishers (PROSE) Awards winner for Best Archaeology & Anthropology Book For most of the modern world, ancient Nubia seems an unknown and enigmatic land. Only a handful of archaeologists have studied its history or unearthed the Nubian cities, temples, and cemeteries that once dotted the landscape of southern Egypt and northern Sudan. Nubia’s remote setting in the midst of an inhospitable desert, with access by river blocked by impassable rapids, has lent it not only an air of mystery, but also isolated it from exploration. Over the past century, particularly during this last generation, scholars have begun to focus more attention on the fascinating cultures of ancient Nubia, ironically prompted by the construction of large dams that have flooded vast tracts of the ancient land. This book attempts to document some of what has recently been discovered about ancient Nubia, with its remarkable history, architecture, and culture, and thereby to give us a picture of this rich, but unfamiliar, African legacy.

The Giza Plateau represents perhaps the most famous archaeological site in the world. With the advent of new technologies, the Necropolis is now accessible in four dimensions. Peter Der Manuelian explores technologies for cataloging and visualizing Giza and offers more general philosophical reflection on the nature of visualization in archaeology.

"In June of 2005, Leonard Lesko retired after 23 years as Wilbour Professor and Chairman of the Department of Egyptology at Brown University. In recognition of his many contributions to the field of Egyptology, 24 colleagues from around the world, and from several fields of ancient studies, contributed articles to a festschrift in his honor. The contributions to the festschrift are as wide-ranging as are Leonard's interests. Contributions discuss ancient Egyptian religion and religious texts, Egyptian grammar, history, art, and archaeology. There are also contributions from the fields of classics, Near Eastern archaeology, and a study of Middle Iranian texts from the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley (where Leonard began his career in Egyptology)."

Recent research on all aspects of the Old Kingdom in Egypt is presented in this volume, ranging through the Pyramid Texts, tomb architecture, ceramics, scene choice and layout, field reports, cemetery layout, tomb and temple statuary. The contributions also show how Egyptology is not stuck in its venerable traditions but that newer forms of technology are being used to great effect by Egyptologists. For example, two papers show how GIS technology can shed light on cemetery arrangement and how 3D scanners can be employed in the process of producing facsimile drawings of reliefs and inscriptions. The authors cover a wide range of sites and monuments. A large part of the work presented deals with material from the great cemeteries of Saqqara and Giza of the Old Kingdom capital city of Memphis but all the smaller sites are discussed. The book also includes a paper on the architecture of mastabas from the lesser-known site of Abu Roasch. The provinces are by no means overlooked, with articles on material from Deir el-Bersha, el-Sheikh Said and Akhmim. Between them, the authors discuss material from the milieu of the king right down to that which concerned the tomb workmen and those who supplied their basic needs, such as bakers, brewers and potters. Containing papers presented at a conference at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge in May 2009, this book continues a series of publications of the latest research presented at previous meetings in Paris, Berlin and Prague. Much new material is published here and the papers are fully illustrated, with over 200 photographs and drawings.