Reflections of Osiris: Lives from Ancient Egypt

by JohnRay (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.25

  This absorbing book approaches the perennially fascinating history of ancient Egypt in a highly original way. Egyptologist John Ray has chosen twelve lives drawn from across the three millennia of that civilization to illuminate it. Some are famous: Imhotep, Egypt's Leonardo, royal architect (of the Step Pyramid), inventor of stone building and seer; Hatshepsut, the female Pharaoh, Egypt's Gloriana; Horemheb, self-made politician and general and finally king, who cleaned up the mess after Akhenaten and Tutankhamun; the legendary magician Pharaoh - Nectanebo II, the greatest builder of temples. The lives of others much less famous have been preserved thanks to the desert: Heqanakhte, a cantankerous peasant farmer who has problems with his sons - and they with their stepmother; Prince Khaemwise, son of the megalomaniac Rameses II, High Priest of Ptah and restorer of ancient monuments - the first Egyptologist; Petiese, a scribe whose petition to the authorities preserves a feud stretching back over generations that has poisoned the temple-based economy of a small town. Most fascinating of all perhaps are the people of the Serapeum: a Greek recluse, his brother, rootless adolescent and police informer, two temple dancers with financial difficulties, and a temple scribe, whom we can briefly come to know intimately, even their dreams. Last is the god Osiris, judge of the netherworld, creator of the land of Egypt, before whom all the above believed they would appear at the end of their lives.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $3.25

  The twelve people in this book (the last five are linked) are: Imhotep, architect and sage, the Leonardo of Ancient Egypt; Heqanakhte, a peasant farmer with problems; Hatshepsut, female Pharaoh, Egypt's Elizabeth I; Horemheb, self-made politician, general and Pharaoh - reformer or reactionary; Khaemwise, a prince who was the first Egyptologist; Petiese, a temple scribe with a grievance; Nectanebo, last Pharaoh of an independent Egypt and legendary magician; Ptolemaios, Greek-Egyptian recluse in the Serapeum temple complex; Apollonios, his youngest brother, would-be soldier, and police informant; Taous and Taw, twin sisters whose job is to impersonate goddesses; Hor, minor priest and secretary at the ibis shrine of Thoth in the same complex. Embracing them all is the figure of the god Osiris.