In the Shadow of the Pyramids: Egypt during the Old Kingdom (Echoes of the Ancient World)
This slim volume contains 120 color plates by photographer Forman and many special insights into the daily lives of Old Kingdom Egyptians by Malek of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. We move from the unification under Narmer through the politics, economics, social structure, and religion of the Old Kingdom, witnessing the development of manufacturing and agriculture, the rise of the necropolis and the royal cult establishments, to an awareness of the interrelationship of these factors as a cause of the Old Kingdom's decline. This was a societysurprisingly democratic and creativewhich was undone by the flaws inherent in the very system which made it great. The plates in this large-format book are excellent, but of no new subjects; the text presents no new facts, but gives a good summation. Fine for general collections. Jo-Ann D. Suleiman, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Ctr. Lib., Greenbelt, Md.Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.