Egypt and the Egyptians

The chapter opens with an 18th Dynasty Egyptian (c. 1570–1293 BC) recording in a wall inscription his admiration for the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, already 1,200 years old at the time — Egyptian reverence for their own past dates to antiquity. Its most famous example is the 'Dream Stele,' uncovered by Caviglia in 1811: young prince Thutmose falls asleep beneath the head of the sand-buried Sphinx while out hunting near the Giza pyramids, and dreams that the Sphinx asks him to clear the sand from its body in exchange for the throne of Egypt — he later does ascend the throne as Thutmose IV.

Greek and Roman fascination with Egypt begins in the 6th century BC — the philosopher Thales makes calculations at the Great Pyramid, and Solon, Pythagoras, and Plato all travel to consult Egyptian priests. Around 450 BC, Herodotus tours the Nile Valley and records what he saw in his Histories, including the only complete ancient account of mummification, though much of what he was told was exaggerated or simply wrong. Alexander the Great conquers Egypt in 332 BC, claims divine descent after consulting the oracle of Amun at Siwa, and after his death is mummified and brought to Egypt.

Under Roman rule Egypt becomes a full-fledged tourist destination — thousands of travelers' graffiti appear on pyramid casing stones, along with inns and guides. The star attraction was the Colossi of Memnon: one of the earthquake-damaged statues emitted eerie sounds at dawn (now known to result from thermal expansion of the stone) — sounds that fell silent forever once Emperor Septimius Severus had the statue "repaired."

The spread of Christianity brings the end of ancient Egyptian religion — Emperor Theodosius's edict (AD 392) orders all pagan temples closed, monks under Patriarch Cyril destroy the Serapeum at Memphis, and in AD 580 the priests of the Isis temple on Philae are arrested — extinguishing the last custodians of the hieroglyphic literary tradition.

The Arab conquest of AD 640 brings a new wave of interest in ancient Egypt — Caliph Harun al-Rashid reportedly paid translators their weight in gold, and by the 15th century "treasure hunting" had become a taxed profession. The Cairo physician Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (c. 1200) gives a detailed eyewitness description of the Sphinx's head, still uncovered by sand. The same era sees the confusion between bitumen and "mummy" (the word's origin) fuel a bizarre — and often fraudulent — European trade in embalmed flesh sold as medicine.

The chapter closes with Oxford astronomer John Greaves's pioneering 1638–39 scientific survey of the Giza pyramids and his 1646 publication Pyramidographia — Greaves is the first to correctly attribute the three great pyramids to Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, laying the scientific foundations of Egyptology.

• A solid academic structure backed by an extensive bibliography, glossary, and dynastic chronology
• A style that brings historical anecdotes (Thutmose's dream, the "singing" statue) to a general readership through vivid storytelling
• A structure with further-reading suggestions at the end of each chapter, usable as a course textbook
• A source-grounded approach that directly quotes archaeological finds and original texts (Herodotus, Abd al-Latif)