Created by art historians under the guidance of Zahi Hawass -- director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities -- this book surveys 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history by focusing on the lives and lifestyles of great pharaohs. The book's design echoes an exhibition, grouping objects representing family life, religious practices, funerary rituals, and gold. In each artifact -- a queen's eye makeup container, a likeness of a princess eating duck, a sarcophagus made for a prince's cat -- we glimpse the life of ancient Egyptian royalty: exotic and fascinating, yet so human. Gold gleams in a leopard-mask of gilded wood, a brilliant pendant bearing tiny goddesses, even the golden finger and toe covers of Tutankhamun himself, meant to protect his extremities in the afterlife. Features more than 120 treasures, a dozen landscape and archaeology photos, and text.
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