Ancient Egypt: The Definitive Visual History (DK Classic History)

Excellent survey of ancient Egyptian history with wonderful and detailed visuals. Includes a directory where you can look up details on specific rulers, gods and archaeological sites. The book is arranged in a number of short and concise distinct articles, making it easy to consume in bite-sized pieces.

This is a great book. It really is fun to read about ancient Egypt and this one is easy to understand and has a lot of nice pictures on glossy paper. You will like this book if you are interested in learning about ancient Egypt.

Tjis book is completely full of pictures on a clear and well lid out time line. It’s wonderful for people interested in the topic but it’s too elementary for experts. The general population will enjoy this beautifully manufactured book printed on the glossiest nice paper. It’s a wonderful book in my opinion and makes a great gift.

Great look at Egypt. Visual and nice history.

If you’re looking to learn about ancient Egypt, this would be the best book to get. It has pictures, descriptions, chapters, definitions, sections etc.. if your looking for a smaller book with just words that you can fit on a book shelf more easily this might not be what you want; however, if your just here to learn a lot get this book!!

Planning a trip to Egypt I needed a pectoral reference to go back to and this checks all the boxes. It’s heavy, so it’s not something you lug around on each mission, however, leave it at the home base and review what you’re going to look at before you go and then write in sidebar remarks when you get home. Has adequate history, supporting it and a good chronological outline.

This pertains to the 2021 edition: The book gives you a broad coverage of Ancient Egyptian history, with plenty of visuals. The coverage is broad, not deep. Most of the time it is one spread (2 pages) per topic, with text and graphics. This style limits the amount of depth the book can cover on a given topic, but there is a good summary presented for each. The format also makes the book not so voluminous, so that one can actually finish it in a month or so, reading say 5 topics a day. A sizeable portion at the end of the book (about 80 pages) is a visual directory of sorts - covering rulers, gods, and sites.This is not a reference book. And while I am very far from being an expert on ancient Egypt, there were a few things I thought could have been covered:- Would have liked better coverage of hieroglyphics per se, with actual readable examples of Demotic, and a bit more on the race to decipher the language.- Discovery of mud-brick worker tombs near the great pyramids is significant, showing it was not slaves who had built those pyramids. While mastabas of queens and nobles in the area are mentioned, this important item is not. I would have liked to see pics as well and how any conclusions were arrived at. In contrast there are worker tombs at Deir el-Medina discussed in detail. So this seems a glaring omission.- Some of the names are spelled "non-standard", i.e. not as you would see them in other works or in Wikipedia. For example, "Amun" as it is commonly known is always spelled "Amen". Or "Pi-Ramesses" is spelled "Pr-Ramesses". There were other examples when you try searching for those names on the web.- The temple at Abu Simbel was a massive high profile international project of relocation, to save it from the waters of Lake Nassar. It is not mentioned.- Coverage of Nilometers with pictures would have been nice, as these were apparently important to their economy-Alexander the Great was crowned as Pharaoh and the priests called him "son of the gods". This is not explicitly mentioned, but is implied in the text. But hey, wouldn't that be good to state with a date of coronation?- You'd expect a history book to have prominent dates displayed throughout for most topics, especially about kings and queens. But these are delegated to the directory, plus a summary timeline chart at the beginning of each kingdom or period. While this is fine, I found myself going back and forth to understand the dates involved, especially when you read a few topics at a time. Thing is, there is enough white space available as wide margins to include a date when possible.- Under Deities, the god "Aker" comes first. He is described without mentioning that he was shown as a lion, or two lions facing in opposite directions. This tidbit I happened to know, so not sure how accurate the descriptions of other deities are.But overall it is an enjoyable book and highly recommended for a broad visual coverage of ancient Egypt, at an introductory level.

Big bold and beautiful I bought one for me and one as a gift, you won’t be disappointed with this book and every fan of ancient Egypt should own one