Ancient Egypt books!

Hi!

Here I'm going to recommend some Egyptology books for people interested in starting to learn about ancient Egypt!

These books are for adults, children will find it hard to understand them sometimes because of the academic language.
They are the basic text-books any new Egyptology/Egyptian Archaeology student needs to read, and are also very good for amateur Egyptologists or people who are generally interested in ancient Egypt!

Egyptian history: The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. This is a brilliant book, with chapters written by excellent scholars, each on a particular period of Egyptian history. It was the main book used as the basis for our Egyptian History in university. So it is a brilliant book for both Egyptology students and interested amateurs!

Egyptian monuments, architecture, and archaeology: An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. This is a very good book, which tells very interesting information about specific sites and monuments which are key to the study of ancient Egypt, and ties in with Egyptian history and society etc.

Hieroglyphs: (that is, Middle Egyptian) How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs This is an excellent book to teach amateurs (and I do mean amateurs) how to read some hieroglyphs. I'm going to write a separate review of this book because there is just so much to talk about. But just for starters, if you want to learn hieroglyphs and have never learnt any of it before, definitely have a go at this book!

A narrative pulling together aspects of Egyptian history, society, architecture etc: Anatomy of a Civilization This is very good as it makes all the separate topics of ancient Egypt tie in together to try to recreate ancient Egypt on the whole.

Daily life: Village Life in Ancient Egypt This is a book of translations of many of the texts found at the famous village of Deir el-Medina (the village where the workmen who built the kings' tombs in the Valley of the Kings lived). It is very good, very funny at times and extremely interesting and insightful. It is starting to get more and more expensive, so if you want to read it and find a cheap copy (under £20), snap it up! You can always sell it for a lot more later!

I could recommend a lot more, but for now that is a good start. It covers many of the most important areas of Egyptology- history, archaeology, monuments, society, hieroglyphs etc, and is a brilliant starter for anyone starting in the Egyptology business, or interested amateurs. Some of these books can be bought very cheaply and are well worth a read! Anybody who is starting off on an Egyptology course will probably need to buy the first 4, they will be on your reading list and highly sought-after in the library, and even if they aren't on your reading list, if you read them you will be ahead of the class!

Happy reading!