Читать книгу Ancient Egypt: History in an Hour - Anthony Holmes, Anthony Holmes - Страница 5

Introduction

The history and mystery of ancient Egypt stirs our imagination and stimulates our desire to understand more about the most influential civilization of the pre-Christian era. The ancient Egyptians preserved their dead in decorated tombs and built magnificent monuments, while other nascent cultures still dressed in skins and lived in rudimentary dwellings. They built in stone, and their choice of construction material has been a boon to those who have tried to unravel the 3,000-year history of their civilization. Painted and inscribed rock-cut tombs, sandstone temples and granite statues have provided us with a comprehensive understanding of their life and culture.

The Egyptians believed in strange animal-headed gods; they mummified their dead in preparation for their journey into the afterlife; they built imposing and enduring stone structures using only Bronze Age tools and their country remained virtually inviolate, unconquered and unchanged for over more than three millennia.

Where did they come from? How did they achieve and maintain a cohesive cultural identity over all that time? What secrets have already been discovered by archaeologists and what revelations might still be waiting to be found hidden in the desert sands of Egypt? Finally, what legacy did they leave to us as we enter the third millennium AD?

This, in an hour, is Ancient Egypt.