This volume deals with the chronology of Ancient Egypt from the fourth millennium until the Hellenistic Period. An initial section reviews the foundations of Egyptian chronology, both ancient and modern, from annals and kinglists to C14 analyses of archaeological data. Specialists discuss sources, compile lists of known dates, and analyze biographical information in the section devoted to relative chronology. The editors are responsible for the final section which attempts a synthesis of the entire range of available data to arrive at alternative absolute chronologies. The prospective readership includes specialists in Near Eastern and Aegean studies as well as Egyptologists.

The nineteen contributions to this volume approach the subject of Egyptian chronology of the Third Millennium BC from different perspectives: some of them concern the use of modern methods (14C) and natural sciences in Egyptology; others analyze the development of various aspects of the Egyptian culture during the whole period of the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate Period, or try to specify the date of certain monuments and personalities. A study and interpretation of archaeological as well as textual sources and iconographical material is combined in the papers in order to attain a deeper knowledge and better understanding of the Egyptian chronology, archaeology and history of the Third Millennium BC. Contributions by: Hartwig Altenmueller, Tarek El Awady, Miroslav Barta, Ale Bezdek, Vivienne Gae Callender, Andrzej Cwiek, Michael Dee, Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Jaromir Krejci, Juan Carlos Moreno Garcia, John S. Nolan, Hratch Papazian, Patrizia Piacentini, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Joanne M. Rowland, Teodozja Rzeuska, Anthony Spalinger, Rainer Stadelmann, Miroslav Verner, Hana Vymazalova, and Anna Wodzinska.

In Three Hundred Years of Death: The Egyptian Funerary Industry in the Ptolemaic Period, Maria Cannata provides a detailed survey of the organisation of the necropolises and the funerary workers, as well as their role in the practical aspects of the mummification, funeral, burial, and mortuary cult of the deceased, in Ptolemaic Egypt (332-30 BC). The author gathers together and synthesises hundreds of the original textual sources, as well as the relevant archaeological sources, on the organisation of the funerary industry and its practitioners, revealing important regional and chronological variations overlooked in studies focusing on a limited geographical area, a shorter timeframe, or a smaller group of documents.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1838.