Briefly Noted

057

Commoners and Queens

Pharaoh’s People: Scenes from Life in Imperial Egypt

T.G.H. James
(New York: Tauris Parke Books, 2003), 282 PP., $16.95

Drawing on evidence from non-royal tomb inscriptions and decorations, as well as accounting records, T.G.H. James, keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, introduces us to the everyday lives of “downscale” Egyptians. Inscriptions on ostraca (inscribed pottery sherds) tell us of disputes involving stolen tools that were adjudicated at workers’ courts. Passages composed by scribal trainees describe the back-breaking labor of farmers. And we learn about the vital role of gleaning—that is, picking through leftover crops—in supplementing peasants’ modest rations; in fact, ancient wall paintings reveal that young girl gleaners sometimes resorted to hair-pulling to get their fair share.

Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth

Susan Walker and Peter Higgs, eds.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 384 PP., $60

Only a quarter of this hefty volume recounts the story of Cleopatra (69–30 B.C.). The remaining pages are filled with depictions of the Queen of the Nile from coins, sculpture, paintings, ceramics and jewelry produced over the past two millennia. The men in Cleopatra’s life are also on display. We see images of her brother/husband Ptolemy XIV (who tried to curry favor with Julius Caesar—one of Cleopatra’s lovers and the father of her son Caesarion—by presenting him with the severed, pickled head of the emperor’s rival, Pompey), as well as images of Pompey himself (another of Cleopatra’s paramours), Caesar and Mark Antony, her greatest love. The editors make a point of discrediting the famous story of the queen’s suicide by asp—instead siding with Plutarch, who wrote that “The truth about her death no one knows.”

Nefertiti

Joyce Tyldesley
(London: Penguin Books, 1999), 232 PP., $14.95

We don’t know how she died or where her mummy is entombed, but queen Nefertiti’s face is almost as familiar as the Mona Lisa’s. Her 14th-century B.C. limestone portrait bust, with its distinctive flat-topped crown, has been an archetype of sophisticated beauty ever since it was discovered in the artist Thutmose’s studio in ancient Akhetaten (modern Tell el-Amarna, Egypt) by German archaeologists in 1912. Author Joyce Tyldesley, a research fellow at Liverpool University, tries to flesh out a round view of the “heretic king” Akhenaten’s mysterious wife. We learn, for example, that she was born into a non-royal family, married Akhenaten shortly after his accession to the throne, and quickly produced six daughters. She officiated at ceremonies exulting the sun disc, Aten, in her husband’s new capital of Akhetaten. Among the remains of Nefertiti’s life are numerous reliefs and paintings, as well as kohl tubes and other cosmetic items inlaid with her name.

059

Kid Stuff

Valley of the Kings

Stuart Tyson Smith and Nancy Stone Bernard
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) 48 PP., $19.95

What child can resist the allure of secret chambers, booby-trapped tombs and linen-wrapped mummies? This account of the archaeological exploration of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings includes the discoveries of 19th-century circus strongman-turned-archaeologist Giovanni Belzoni and Howard Carter’s sensational uncovering of King Tuthankhamun’s tomb in the 1920s. Photographs of stunning artifacts and creepy, desiccated pharaohs will surely fascinate elementary school readers.

Dinosaur Mummies

Kelly Milner Halls
(Plain City, Ohio: Darby Creek Publishing, 2003) 48 PP., $17.95

Far rarer than Egyptian mummies are the mummified remains of dinosaurs. Just three years ago, some bone diggers exploring a ravine in Montana discovered the fossilized remains of a 77 million-year-old duckbill dinosaur affectionately known as “Leonardo.” Not only was his hide preserved in stone, but so were his muscles, internal organs and stomach contents. Colorful photographs and drawings show how minerals replaced Leonardo’s rotting tissues, preserving him in 3-D.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Diana Bentley
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 32 PP., $17.95

Antiquity’s “Top Seven” list of man-made marvels, first compiled by the Greek poet Antipater, are engagingly discussed and illustrated in this slim volume. Young readers will learn how the ancients pulled off such engineering feats as the pyramids of Giza, the hanging gardens of Babylon and the Colossus of Rhodes—which inspired such modern “wonders” as the Statue of Liberty.

Archaeology: Discovering the Past

John Orna-Ornstein
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 48 PP., $18.95

Using the vast collections of the British Museum to illustrate this book, the author—a curator at the Museum’s Department of Coins and Metals—asks basic questions about the past: What is left of the ancient world? Why is the past often underground? What did people eat? What was the world like? He explains specific techniques used at digs and even delves into the use of CAT scanners and x-rays in archaeological sleuthing.

The Palace of Minos at Knossos

Chris Scarre and Rebecca Stefoff
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 48 PP., $21.95

There’s lots to marvel at in this tour of the ancient palace at Knossos, Crete. The authors illustrate their story with colorful photographs of enormous pithoi, frescoes with bull-leapers and scenes from Arthur Evans’s excavation of this fabled site. A sidebar about architect Michael Ventris’s decipherment of Linear B, the mysterious language discovered at Knossos, will intrigue junior code-breakers.

Commoners and Queens

Pharaoh’s People: Scenes from Life in Imperial Egypt