Useful Online Resources and Books About Ancient Egypt
This picture shows a German Egyptologist (circa early 1900s ) supervising a gang of Egyptian workmen excavating a tomb. Archaelogical digs by such gangs of untrained men often resulted in irreperable damage to the tomb and its contents.
This section contains a number of text books about ancient Egypt as well as specialized topics such as Egyptian religion and history. These books are in the public domain and were, for the most part, published during the heyday of Egyptian exploration, when the tombs of the ancient Egyptians were being excavated (some would say looted) by Egyptologists, often lacking any real education, from Britain, Germany and France.
While some of the books presented here are useful, it should be noted that Egyptology has progressed a great deal from the days when any untrained tourist could hire some Egyptian peasant workers and empty a tomb of its treasures without regard to the context of his finds. Many of the texts presented here contain what is now known to be inaccurate information, so they should not be relied upon for your primary research and everything should be checked against more modern sources for accuracy. These books by the early Egyptologists are still of interest because they allow us to understand the prejudices and misconceptions that shaped these archaeologists' view points and ability to understand a culture so different and more ancient than their own.
Photograph of an Egyptian sarcophagous displaying mytholgical and religious symbols.
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Index of Texts |
