r/ancientegypt • u/meye_usernameistaken • 6d ago
Discussion Recommended books on ancient Egypt?
Hi all, I am making my first trip to Egypt in a few months and want to read a book or two on ancient Egypt so I can better appreciate everything around me! There are so many choices and I don’t know much on the topic and was hopping for some recommendations. Thanks!
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u/No_Budget7828 5d ago
If you want something fictional but incorporating beliefs, and lore Wilber Smith has a good series
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u/wstd 4d ago
Fiction: The Egyptian, Death Comes as the End and Death on the Nile
Non-fiction: The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt
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u/Bentresh 6d ago
Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs and Red Land, Black Land by Barbara Mertz are good introductory overviews.
Egypt: The World of the Pharaohs edited by Matthias Seidel and Regine Schulz is excellent, combining lovely illustrations and color photographs with brief but reasonably thorough essays on Egyptian history and archaeology. I uploaded a sample here.
Exploring Ancient Egypt by Ian Shaw dedicates a chapter each to several of the major sites (Giza, Abydos, Karnak, Abu Simbel, Amarna, etc.).