Ancient Egypt: An Introduction

I was doing an online short course about ancient Egypt from Oxford department of continuing education as I am fascinated by the subject for years. This is the recommended coursebook so I bought it. It is a very nice textbook with an overview of different aspects of ancient Egyptian. If you are looking for something which go through the Egyptian history chronologically by major events, this is not for you. It focuses on geography, religion and funerary traditions. I would recommend people to have a basic understanding of the timeline before going into this one. It might be a bit confusing and too academic to beginners. However, if you just want to know more about ancient Egyptians and don't care about the timeline, then it's fine. To me, it is the right book to guide me through the course. I already know the major events happened from Old Kingdom to New Kingdom before reading it. What I want is to delve deeper into the details and the worldview of ancient Egyptians and the reasons behind. As I read a lot of academic articles, the formal tone is fine for me and not dull and boring at all. It includes right amount of pictures and sketches that give you a better understanding. In general, this is a nice academic source book which I would recommend to adults with an intermediate level of knowledge on the topic.

I will be taking a long-awaited immersive trip to Egypt later this year. In order to properly prepare for this visit I enrolled in a 10 week online course (Ancient Egypt: An Introduction) through Oxford University. This book is required reading for the course. My practice is to read books in their entirety prior to the beginning of a course. Thus far I am 3 chapters in and I have found this book to be highly instructive. I'm learning new things and I'm eager to read more. This is not a novel, it's a textbook packed with details, which appear to be thoroughly researched. It also contains some very helpful maps and interesting photos.

One of the best, if not the best, entry level overview on Ancient Egypt, with many tables, diagrams, etc., written by more of the most well-regarded living historians, the esteemed Salima Ikram, who has extensive record of peer‐reviewed publications and her work employs rigorous methodologies, leaving very little room for criticism.

The book came expeditiously and in great shape. I'm looking forward to using this book as part of my upcoming Egyptology class.

A great book for those who are studying Egyptolgy or those who are interested in it. I bought it for my wife as a present after searching long for a good Egyptology-Textbook. She is in love with the book and finds it much better explaning than bookets provided by her professors for Egyptology.