The first volume of a history of the earliest days of ancient Egypt challenges popular archaeological understandings to chronicle the ancient world's first agricultural practices through the construction of the pyramids.

For more than 1,000 years, the Byzantine Empire was the eye of the entire world. The origin of great literature, fine art, and modern government, it was also the first Christian empire. Pass through the gates of Constantinople, explore the magnificent mosque of Hagia Sophia and see the looted treasures of the empire now located in St. Marks, Venice.

Drawing on a lifetime of research, John Romer chronicles the history of Ancient Egypt from the building of the Great Pyramid through the rise and fall of the Middle Kingdom: a peak of Pharaonic culture and the period when writing first flourished. Through extensive research over many decades of work, reveals how the grand narratives of 19th and 20th century Egyptologists have misled us by portraying a culture of cruel monarchs and chronic war. Instead,...

The Book of the Dead is a unique collection of funerary texts from a wide variety of sources, dating from the fifteenth to the fourth century BC. Consisting of spells, prayers and incantations, each section contains the words of power to overcome obstacles in the afterlife. The papyruses were often left in sarcophagi for the dead to use as passports on their journey from burial, and were full of advice about the ferrymen, gods and kings they would...