A fascinating, erudite, and witty glimpse of the human side of ancient Egypt—this acclaimed classic work is now revised and updated for a new generation Displaying the unparalleled descriptive power, unerring eye for fascinating detail, keen insight, and trenchant wit that have made the novels she writes (as Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels) perennial New York Times bestsellers, internationally renowned Egyptologist Barbara Mertz brings a long-buried civilization to vivid life. In Red Land, Black Land, she transports us back thousands of years and immerses us in the sights, aromas, and sounds of day-to-day living in the legendary desert realm that was ancient Egypt. Who were these people whose civilization has inspired myriad films, books, artwork, myths, and dreams, and who built astonishing monuments that still stagger the imagination five thousand years later? What did average Egyptians eat, drink, wear, gossip about, and aspire to? What were their amusements, their beliefs, their attitudes concerning religion, childrearing, nudity, premarital sex? Mertz ushers us into their homes, workplaces, temples, and palaces to give us an intimate view of the everyday worlds of the royal and commoner alike. We observe priests and painters, scribes and pyramid builders, slaves, housewives, and queens—and receive fascinating tips on how to perform tasks essential to ancient Egyptian living, from mummification to making papyrus. An eye-opening and endlessly entertaining companion volume to Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs, Mertz's extraordinary history of ancient Egypt, Red Land, Black Land offers readers a brilliant display of rich description and fascinating edification. It brings us closer than ever before to the people of a great lost culture that was so different from—yet so surprisingly similar to—our own.

This text explains the cultural and historical background to the fascinating and complex world of Egyptian myth, with each chapter dealing with a particular theme.

Deserts, the Red Land, bracket the narrow strip of alluvial Black Land that borders the Nile. Networks of desert roads ascended to the high desert from the Nile Valley, providing access to the mineral wealth and Red Sea ports of the Eastern Desert, the oasis depressions and trade networks of the Western Desert. A historical perspective from the Predynastic through the Roman Periods highlights how developments in the Nile Valley altered the Egyptian administration and exploitation of the deserts. For the ancient Egyptians, the deserts were a living landscape, and at numerous points along the desert roads, the ancient Egyptians employed rock art and rock inscriptions to create and mark places. Such sites provide considerable evidence for the origin of writing in northeast Africa, the religious significance of the desert and expressions of personal piety, and the development of the early alphabet.

Using the life of a young girl and her family as a model, this book recreates the daily life of the middle-class residents of the ancient town of Lahun during Egypt’s Middle Kingdom period. This perfect snapshot in time has been painstakingly recreated using recently published textual data and archaeological findings. Provides an illuminating and engaging re-construction of what daily life was like in ancient Egypt Describes the main issues of everyday life in the town - from education, work, and food preparation to religious rituals, healing techniques, marriages, births, and deaths Authentically recreated through the use of recently published textual data and archaeological findings directly from the settlement of Lahun and other sites Includes photographs and illustrations of actual artifacts from the settlement of Lahun

This is a work of fiction that straddles continents, and spans decades and diverse cultures. The characters present the real world of the day in a very believable manner.

Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt is peaceful and prosperous under the dual rule of the Pharaohs Amenhotep III and IV, until the younger Pharaoh begins to dream new and terrifying dreams. Ptah-hotep, a young peasant boy studying to be a scribe, wants to live a simple life in a Nile hut with his lover Kheperren and their dog Wolf. But Amenhotep IV appoints him as Great Royal Scribe. Surrounded by bitterly envious rivals and enemies, how long will Ptah-hotep survive? The child-princess Mutnodjme sees her beautiful sister Nefertiti married off to the impotent young Amenhotep. But Nefertiti must bear royal children, so the ladies of the court devise a shocking plan. Kheperren, meanwhile, serves as scribe to the daring teenage General Horemheb. But while the Pharaoh's shrinking army guards the Land of the Nile from enemies on every border, a far greater menace impends. For, not content with his own devotion to one god alone, the newly-renamed Akhnaten plans to suppress the worship of all other gods in the Black Land. His horrified court soon realise that the Pharaoh is not merely deformed, but irretrievably mad; and that the biggest danger to the Empire is in the royal palace itself.

Everlasting Egypt: Kemetic Rituals for the Gods continues Richard Reidys groundbreaking work and collects more temple rituals from Egypt. The author presents rites for personal and group use, augmenting and updating those in his first volume, Eternal Egypt: Ancient Rituals for the Modern World. The guidebook: Presents over 37 rituals for Gods, Goddesses, and Annual and Lunar Festivals in a form designed to assist practitioners in restoring the ancient rites of Egypt; Provides for modern usage, with key ritual texts coming from authenticated ancient sources, as well as commentaries and background information; Includes a comprehensive Introduction with a model for organizing a modern Kemetic Temple or Group; Includes updated Egyptian vocalizations and a pronunciation key; Offers practical information for conducting these rituals in todays world. These ritual texts reveal once more the deeply spiritual understanding of humanitys relationship to divinity that characterized the ancient Egyptian sense of the sacred. Cover Image: Ritual scene from the Temple of Hathor at Deir el Medina. Ptolemaic Period. Matthew Whealton, 2018.

An insightful volume delving into the enduringly compelling art of ancient Egypt, from a new historical perspective The art and architecture of Egypt during the age of the pharaohs continue to capture the imagination of the modern world. Among the great creative achievements of ancient Egypt are a set of constant forms: archetypes in art and architecture in which the origins of concepts such as authority, divinity, beauty, and meaning are readily discernible. Whether adapted to fine, delicate jewelry or colossal statues, these forms maintain a human face—with human ideas and emotions. These artistic templates, and the ideas they articulated, were refined and reinvented through dozens of centuries, until scenes first created for the earliest kings, around 3000 BCE, were eventually used to represent Roman emperors and the last officials of pre-Christian Egypt. Bill Manley’s account of the art of ancient Egypt draws on the finest works through more than 3,000 years and places celebrated masterpieces, from the Narmer palette to Tutankhamun’s gold mask, in their original contexts in the tombs, temples, and palaces of the pharaohs and their citizens.

The amazing, dramatic, and painful autobiographical story of Ange Zhang as he came of age during the Cultural Revolution in China. When Mao’s Cultural Revolution took hold in China in June 1966, Ange Zhang was thirteen years old. His father was a famous writer. Shortly after the revolution began, many of Ange’s classmates joined the Red Guard, Mao’s youth movement, and they drove their teachers out of the classrooms. But in the weeks that followed, Ange discovered that his father’s fame as a writer now meant that he was a target of the new regime. When his father was arrested, he began to question everything that was happening in his country. Finally, Ange was forced to join many other young urban Chinese students in the countryside for re-education where he found the emotional space to develop his own artistic talent and to find that he, like his father, was an artist — except that Ange’s talent lay in painting and drawing. This dramatic, painful autobiographical story is complemented by photographs, many drawn from Ange’s personal collection, as well as a non-fiction section that explains the historical period and is also illustrated with archival images. Key Text Features author’s note glossary Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.7 Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.

Proud of Their Heritage and Sustained by Their Faith, They Came to Tame a New Land She had promised herself that once they left the fjords of Norway, she would not look back. After three long years of scrimping and saving to buy tickets for their passage to America, Roald and Ingeborg Bjorklund, along with their son, Thorliff, finally arrive at the docks of New York City. It was the promise of free land that fed their dream and lured them from their beloved home high above the fjords of Norway in 1880. Together with Roald's brother Carl and his family, they will build a good life in a new land that promises untold wealth and vast farmsteads for their children. As they join the throngs of countless immigrants passing through Castle Garden, they soon discover that nothing is as they had envisioned it. Appalled by the horrid stories of fellow immigrants bilked of all their money and forced to live in squalid living conditions, the Bjorklunds continue their long journey by train as far as Grand Forks. From there a covered wagon takes them into Dakota Territory, where they settle on the banks of the Red River. But there was no way for them to foresee the price they will have to pay to wrest a living from the indomitable land. The virgin prairie refuses to yield its treasure without a struggle. Will they be strong enough to overcome the hardships of that first winter?