I like to try and tie my son’s reading assignments with the period of history we’re studying. This year we’ve gone back to the ancient world—Greece, Rome and Egypt. How fortunate for me that in the box with a personal collection of Landmark books I snagged at a library book sale for $1 each was W59 – The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.
The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.
Payne, Elizabeth Ann. New York: Random House, 1964. 192 pp.
This book isn’t a single narrative story, but a collection of stories of the events and people. Sometimes the chapter will be about a Pharaoh, like Cheops, Hatshepsut, or Ramses. Other times the focus will be on an archeologist, like Jean Francois Champollion who translated the Rosetta Stone or Howard Carter when he discovered the still sealed tomb of Tutankhamen. There’s even a chapter on “The Smiter of the Asiatics—Thutmose III,” the pharaoh from Henty’s The Cat of Bubastes that we will also read this year.
Did you know the cycle of the Nile flooding not only allowed the Egyptian civilization to develop along the fertile soil along the sides of the river, but also allowed for the building of the pyramids. It was during those four months of flooding, when farmers couldn’t work in the fields, that the Pharaoh would “generously” offer to feed, house, and pay them to build the great pyramid. The book cites historian James Baikie referring to this as the first unemployment program recorded. I’d like to point out that these ancient men were being paid to actually work, not paid for not working as we do today.
This is one of the few Landmark books we have with black & white photographs rather than illustrations. I also have a couple of DK books that we refer to because you really need to see Tut’s solid gold death mask in full color.
You can see all my rescued books by clicking here
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