The discovery of ancient Egypt and the development of Egyptology are momentous events in intellectual and cultural history. The history of Egyptology is the story of the people, famous and obscure, who constructed the picture of ancient Egypt that we have today, recovered the Egyptian past while inventing it anew, and made a lost civilization comprehensible to generations of enchanted readers and viewers thousands of years later. This, the third of a three-volume history of Egyptology, follows the progress of the discipline from the trauma of the First World War, through the vicissitudes of the twentieth century, and into Egyptology's new horizons at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Wonderful Things affirms that the history of ancient Egypt has proved continually fascinating, but it also demonstrates that the history of Egyptology is no less so. Only by understanding how Egyptology has developed can we truly understand the Egyptian past.

The discovery of ancient Egypt and the development of Egyptology are momentous events in intellectual and cultural history. The history of Egyptology is the story of the people, famous and obscure, who constructed the picture of ancient Egypt that we have today, recovered the Egyptian past while inventing it anew, and made a lost civilization comprehensible to generations of enchanted readers and viewers thousands of years later. This, the first of a three-volume survey of the history of Egyptology, follows the fascination with ancient Egypt from antiquity until 1881, tracing the recovery of ancient Egypt and its impact on the human imagination in a saga filled with intriguing mysteries, great discoveries, and scholarly creativity. Wonderful Things affirms that the history of ancient Egypt has proved continually fascinating, but it also demonstrates that the history of Egyptology is no less so. Only by understanding how Egyptology has developed can we truly understand the Egyptian past.

The surprising and compelling story of two rival geniuses in an all-out race to decode one of the world's most famous documents--the Rosetta Stone--and their twenty-year-long battle to solve the mystery of ancient Egypt's hieroglyphs. The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous objects in the world, attracting millions of visitors to the British museum ever year, and yet most people don't really know what it is. Discovered in a pile of rubble in 1799, this slab of stone proved to be the key to unlocking a lost language that baffled scholars for centuries. Carved in ancient Egypt, the Rosetta Stone carried the same message in different languages--in Greek using Greek letters, and in Egyptian using picture-writing called hieroglyphs. Until its discovery, no one in the world knew how to read the hieroglyphs that covered every temple and text and statue in Egypt. Dominating the world for thirty centuries, ancient Egypt was the mightiest empire the world had ever known, yet everything about it--the pyramids, mummies, the Sphinx--was shrouded in mystery. Whoever was able to decipher the Rosetta Stone, and learn how to read hieroglyphs, would solve that mystery and fling open a door that had been locked for two thousand years. Two brilliant rivals set out to win that prize. One was English, the other French, at a time when England and France were enemies and the world's two great superpowers. The Writing of the Gods chronicles this high-stakes intellectual race in which the winner would win glory for both himself and his nation. A riveting portrait of empires both ancient and modern, this is an unparalleled look at the culture and history of ancient Egypt and a fascinating, fast-paced story of human folly and discovery unlike any other.

The final chapter in the definitive, three-volume history of the world's first known state Archaeologist John Romer has spent a lifetime chronicling the history of Ancient Egypt, and here he tells the epic story of an era dominated by titans of the popular imagination: the radical iconoclast Akhenaten, the boy-king Tutankhamun and the all-conquering Ramesses II. But 'heroes' do not forge history by themselves. This was also a time of international trade, cultural exchange and sophisticated art, even in the face of violent change. Alongside his visionary new history of this, the most famous period in the long history of Ancient Egypt, Romer turns a critical eye on Egyptology itself. Paying close attention to the evidence, he corrects prevailing narratives which cast the New Kingdom as an imperial state power in the European mould. Instead, he reveals - through broken artefacts in ruined workshops, or preserved letters between a tomb-builder and his son - a culture more beautiful and beguiling than we could have imagined. Romer carefully reconstructs the real story of the New Kingdom as evidenced in the archaeological record, and the result - the final volume of a life long project - secures his status as Ancient Egypt's finest chronicler.

This book examines the life and legacy of John Lowell Jr (1799–1836) through the establishment of the Lowell Institute, still active in Boston, which offers free education.

The discovery of ancient Egypt and the development of Egyptology are momentous events in intellectual and cultural history. The history of Egyptology is the story of the people, famous and obscure, who constructed the picture of ancient Egypt that we have today, recovered the Egyptian past while inventing it anew, and made a lost civilization comprehensible to generations of enchanted readers and viewers thousands of years later.

Originally published: United Kingdom: Allen Lane, 2016.

The ancient world comes to life in the first volume in a two book series on the history of Egypt, spanning the first farmers to the construction of the pyramids. Famed archaeologist John Romer draws on a lifetime of research to tell one history's greatest stories; how, over more than a thousand years, a society of farmers created a rich, vivid world where one of the most astounding of all human-made landmarks, the Great Pyramid, was built. Immersing the reader in the Egypt of the past, Romer examines and challenges the long-held theories about what archaeological finds mean and what stories they tell about how the Egyptians lived. More than just an account of one of the most fascinating periods of history, this engrossing book asks readers to take a step back and question what they've learned about Egypt in the past. Fans of Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra and history buffs will be captivated by this re-telling of Egyptian history, written by one of the top Egyptologists in the world.

"The essays collected in this book were delivered at the XLII Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, held in London [at King's College and at the Courtauld Institute of Art] in 2009 to accompany the exhibition Byzantium 330-1453, at the Royal Academy [held October 25, 2008-March 22, 2009; a collaboration between the Royal Academy of Arts and the Benaki Museum in Athens]. The exhibition was one of the most ambitious and complex exhibitions ever mounted at the Royal Academy, as well as one of the most popular, and the overall aim of the book is to reflect on the exhibition of Byzantine art, both as an academic and popular exercise, and through the choice and discussion of individual objects. Exhibitions present a very different picture of Byzantium and its culture from works of history. The choices of object for display, their arrangement, and the underlying aims of exhibition curators and designers mean that every exhibition presents a different picture of Byzantium. Particular emphases can be placed, whether on everyday life or high court culture; Constantinople or the provinces; or claims of continuity or change over the Byzantine millennium. The essays explore aspects of the image of Byzantium that results from these choices. Given the enormous popularity of exhibitions of Byzantine objects (continued after the completion of this volume by exhibitions in Paris, Bonn and Istanbul), art has become one of the most popular and accessible means of popularizing Byzantium to a wide public audience. Hitherto there has been no general consideration of either the historiography of Byzantine exhibitions or the ways in which they have been set up to present different aspects of Byzantine culture to an academic and general public.