Valley of the Golden Mummies
by Zahi Hawass

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Book Reviews of Valley of the Golden Mummies

Book Review: Very Good
Summary: 3 Stars

Summary of Valley of the Golden Mummies

It is being hailed as the most sensational find since King Tut's tomb: hundreds of 2,000-year-old mummies, in near-pristine condition and many with masks of gold, uncovered in the Egyptian desert. Never before have so many mummies been discovered in a single site. Ever since front-page headlines announced the electrifying find, the world has awaited the full story. Now, in the only book on the golden mummies, the director of the excavation, noted Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, takes readers to the site to see what cannot be seen anywhere else-and shares the wealth of new information the tombs are yielding about Egyptian life during the Roman occupation.

The site will remain closed as the dig goes on, making this book-with more than 250 exceptional full-color photographs-the only place to see what lies inside these mysterious graves.

280 photographs, 260 in full color, 5 line drawings, 93/4 x 113/4"

Zahi Hawass, the director general of the Giza Pyramid complex and a leading Egyptian archaeologist, hurried to the site, which turned up more and more of those golden-masked corpses--105 in the first year of excavation alone, the largest number of mummies yet discovered at a single Egyptian site. Hawass's book describes the site and its contents, which offer material evidence of daily life at the Bahariya Oasis during the 25th and 26th dynasties, a time about which little is now known. Gaps in the historical record are quickly being filled, however, thanks to Hawass's ongoing findings, only a fraction of which are reported in his book. He guesses that the Valley of the Golden Mummies may eventually yield more than 10,000 perfectly preserved corpses and a wealth of information about their time.

The richly illustrated text also provides a detailed account of the work of modern Egyptologists, who accord their subjects a respect not often shown by earlier generations of field workers; as Hawass remarks, "We always treat a mummy as if it were still a person, just as we would hope to be treated ourselves in similar circumstances." It's an altogether fascinating excursion into long-ago times. --Gregory McNamee

General Books

• History > Africa > Egypt
• Ancient > Egypt
• Middle East > Egypt
• World > General
• Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Archaeology > Egyptian
• General