2024/104: Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs — Barbara Mertz

Admiring students of ancient Egypt have credited the Egyptians with the invention of many interesting and useful pursuits, but no one has ever given them their due as the originators of the pernicious habit of scribbling on tourist attractions. [p. 56]

First published in 1964, and updated several times since then (for instance, to acknowledge the 'enormous fun' of Raiders of the Lost Ark), this is the classic 'popular history' of Ancient Egypt: it turns out also to have influenced Rosemary Harris' trilogy (starting with The Moon in the Cloud) set in Old Testament times, in which Canaanite animal tamer Reuben visits Egypt several times. And Mertz, as Elizabeth Peters, also wrote the immensely popular Amelia Peabody books (starting with Crocodile on the Sandbank) with their 'lady Egyptologist' heroine, and mostly set in late 19th century Egypt. Excellent credentials, and this book did not disappoint.

Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs is an enjoyable and informative read, covering the history of Egypt from Menes, the first King of the Two Lands, to the decline of Egyptian civilisation under the Romans -- a period of three thousand years. It's enlivened by the author's distinctive voice and sardonic observations: she has no time for 'pyramidiots' but is fond of theories that have a romantic resonance. Her love for her subject is evident on every page. I learnt a lot about the different dynasties, the role of women (and especially royal women), and the changing fashions in burial, from pots of aromatic ointment to mere depictions of those pots. 

She also has an excellent summary of Egyptian artistic style, with its faces in profile and eyes in front view: 'The Egyptians did not work in this way because they could not draw a face in front view; behind their technique was a concept of the universe that made visual impressions unimportant. They did not care what something looked like, but what it was like, and they worked out a way of expressing the essential qualities of objects that satisfied them so thoroughly that they continued to use it for three thousand years.' [p. 73] And her account of some of the enduring puzzles of Egyptology (empty sarcophagi, Akhenaten's physiognomy) are engaging and clear.

One vexing issue was that 'off' had been replaced by 'of' nearly everywhere -- 'she cast of the trailing skirts of a woman and put on the kilt and crown of a king, and she carried it of for twenty years' and, even more egregiously, 'the of spring of the reigning monarch'. Confusing, until I'd identified the issue.