"In The Representations of Women in the Middle Kingdom Tombs of Officials Lubica Hudáková offers an in-depth analysis of female iconography in the decorative programme of Middle Kingdom non-royal tombs, highlighting changes and innovations in comparison to the Old Kingdom. Previously considered too uniform, the study represents the first systematic investigation of two-dimensional images of women and reveals their variability in space and time. Hudáková examines the roles appointed to women by analyzing how they are depicted in a variety of contexts. Taking into account their postures, gestures, garments, hairstyles, size of the body, age as well as attributes and tools used by them, along with the scene orientation, she traces diachronic and diatopic developments and regional traditions in the Middle Kingdom tomb decoration"--

This fifth volume in the Places in Time series offers a lens for viewing the culture and places of the people of ancient Egypt.

Following the Napoleonic military campaign in Egypt (1798-1801), Europe rediscovered the ancient Egyptian civilization, and later expeditions deepened and amplified knowledge of the country's archaeological monuments, giving birth to a new science, Egyptology, which is still very active. In 1828, Charles X of France and Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany financed the first international scientific expedition to Egypt, the aim of which was to explore the historic monuments of the country. Unlike the Napoleonic Commission, the Franco-Tuscan expedition was able to take advantage of the understanding of hieroglyphic script and therefore examine the antiquities more systematically. The leaders of the expedition were Jean-François Champollion, the man who deciphered the hieroglyphs using the Rosetta Stone, and Ippolito Rosellini. Born in Pisa in 1800, Rosellini was noted for his study of the monuments, deciphering of the hieroglyphs and, above all, for his contribution to science in the form of his illustrated work, The Monuments of Egypt and Nubia. This volume recounts the era of early Egyptology at the start of the nineteenth century, and presents the most beautiful plates from Rosellini's original work made following the long expedition.

What can the present tell us about the past? From 1968 to 1990, Edward Ochsenschlager conducted ethnoarchaeological fieldwork near a mound called al-Hiba, in the marshes of southern Iraq. In examining the material culture of three tribes—their use of mud, reed, wood, and bitumen, and their husbandry of cattle, water buffalo, and sheep—he chronicles what is now a lost way of life. He helps us understand ancient manufacturing processes, an artifact's significance and the skill of those who create and use it, and the substantial moral authority wielded by village craftspeople. He reveals the complexities involved in the process of change, both natural and enforced. Al-Hiba contains the remains of Sumerian people who lived in the marshes more than 5,000 years ago in a similar ecological setting, using similar material resources. The archaeological evidence provides insights into everyday life in antiquity. Ochsenschlager enhances the comparisons of past and present by extensive illustrations from his fieldwork and also from the University Museum's rare archival photographs taken in the late nineteenth century by John Henry Haynes. This was long before Saddam Hussein drove one of the tribes from the marshes, forced the Bedouin to live elsewhere, and irrevocably changed the lives of those who tried to stay.

This analysis shows how the Egyptian non-royal epithets from the Middle Kingdom (c. 2040-1640 BCE) provide new insight into the ways in which biographical self-presentation reflects religious and social attitudes and the changing relationship between elite officials and the king.

The author examines current Egyptological evidence and argues that it supports the biblical record concerning Israel in Egypt. Drawing on evidence from recent excavations in the Nile Delta, extra-biblical texts, inscriptions, artefacts, and recent infra-red satellite photographs, he provides a reconstruction of the Israelite sojourn, defends the plausibility of the Joseph story, discusses the role of Moses in history, and traces the probable route of the Exodus itself.