The Prehistory of Egypt: From the First Egyptians to the First Pharaohs

Beatrix Midant-Reynes

Wiley, 2000 - History - 328 pages

This book covers the prehistory of the Nile Valley from Nubia to the Mediterranean, during the period from the earliest hominid settlement, around 700,000 BC, to the beginnings of dynastic Egypt at the end of the fourth millennium BC. The author explores the prehistoric foundations pf many of the cultural traditions of Pharaonic Egypt.

The book focuses primarily on the fifteen millennia from 18,000 to 3,000 BC, when different cultures can be identified and the earliest forms of agriculture traced with some detail. Textile and ceramic production began at the end of the seventh millennium and were deployed with great skill and considerable sophistication by the beginning of the Predynastic Period at around 4,500 BC. By the Early Dynastic Period much that is considered characteristic of Ancient Egypt, such as cosmology and burial rites, was already established tradition.

This account of prehistoric Egypt will be welcomed as an outstanding narrative, combining both scholarship and accessibility.

About the author

The author, B&éatrix Midant-Reynes, is Head of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Toulouse (Centre d’Anthropologie, Universit&é Paul Sabatier). She is also editor of Arch&éonil (a journal dedicated to the study of prehistoric Egypt and Nubia) and Director of the excavations at the Predynastic site of Ada&ïma (on behalf of IFAO). In 1986 she was Humbolt Stipendiatin in Staatliche Sammlung &Ágyptischer Kunst’ in Munich.

The translator, Ian Shaw, is lecturer in Egyptian archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. He is the author of Ancient Egyptian Warfare and Weapons (1991), co-author of The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (with Nicholson, 1995) and co-editor of The Dictionary of Archaeology (with Jameson: Blackwell, 1998) and Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology (with Nicholson, 1999). He also translated Nicolas Grimal’s A History of Ancient Egypt (Blackwell, 1992).

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Prehistory of Egypt: From the First Egyptians to the First Pharaohs
• Author: Beatrix Midant-Reynes
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Wiley, 2000
• ISBN: 0631217878, 9780631217879
• Length: 328 pages
• Subjects: History / Ancient / Egypt; History / Ancient / General; History / Middle East / Egypt; Social Science / Anthropology / General; Social Science / Archaeology