A Guide to the Egyptian Collections in the British Museum

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. This richly illustrated guide opens a window onto nearly fifty thousand Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum, offering both a visitor's companion and a compact scholarly survey of one of the world's greatest archaeological collections. It traces ancient Egypt from the earliest dynasties to the Christian and Coptic periods, exploring history, religion, language, burial customs, art, and daily life through monuments, inscriptions, papyri, statues, tomb objects, and sacred images. The book begins with Egypt itself: the geography of the Nile Valley, the Delta, the oases, lakes, Fayyûm, and deserts, and the river's power to shape settlement, agriculture, identity, and kingship. It blends modern geography with ancient belief, presenting the Nile as both a measurable natural system and a divine force embodied by Ḥāpi, whose annual inundation brought fertility, festivals, and survival. It also confronts the dangers of flood failure, famine, and the changing Christian view of burial. Finally, it reveals the ingenuity of Egyptian tombs, from simple graves to the Step Pyramid and mastaba "houses of eternity," preserving a civilization of enduring grandeur.