EGYPT

What do we really know about our ancestors? Not about the rulers andgenerals, but about labourers, farmers, soldiers and families. Egypt is aperfect case in point, almost a blank slate for most of us as regardsdetails of their everyday life. This useful and informative book attemptsto set the record straight by offering a distinctive take on that mostmythologised of epochs. Who would have guessed for example that the first strike in recordedhistory took place in 1152 BC during work on the necropolis in the Valleyof the Kings, a protest by construction workers against delayed deliveriesof oil and flour. Two fairly banal commodities maybe, but essential: Oilprotected the skin against the savage desert climate, whilst flour was thebase ingredient for thirty different kinds of nutritional cake. It is this detailed examination of the evidence that distinguishes thisvolume, with chapters (all uniquely headed in the correspondinghieroglyphs) on everything from relationships to leisure activities, therole of women to the manufacture of mummies. And just like the mummies,"fragile as eggshell but solid as a statue", magically able to transcenddeath, so both people and country are brought alive for us again.