Biographical Texts from Ramessid Egypt

Here 45 late Bronze Age priests, artists, civil officials and military men give evidence of crucial developments in art, language and religious ideas on their tombs, on statues, and on temple walls. Frood (Egyptology, U. of Oxford) provides a strong contextual background for these people, who served the kings of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties, in the form of a general introduction and information on each biography, including relationships between the authors, their deities and their king and the ways in which their stories are inscribed. The result is a thorough introduction to the ways in which powerful people thought of themselves, their king and their gods in ancient Egyptian culture. The Society of Biblical Literature publishes the paperbound edition; Brill publishes the hardbound. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)