This is a long book, it has to be. It spans 4,000 years. It’s not just names and dates, but filled with real people, like the royal manicurists Niankhnum and Khnumhotep, whose house was decorated with vignettes of their lives, scenes of stick-fighting, and of women baking bread and tending children.  Descriptions of scenes that decorated royal and non-royal tombs provide an interesting insight to everyday life.

In the key Egyptian creation myth the deity was the sun, the mother and father of everything. All creation was dual and unable to exist without each other. Male and female were both essential. The author strives to correct the usual picture of a male dominated society and shows the many roles women played, including several Pharaohs and a couple of physicians. The book puts life in Egypt into a context that is easy for the layperson to understand.

eGalley review                                           Publication date 8.2.16