Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries is nominally written by Stephanie Boonstra and Campbell Price, but they also acted as editors, gathering together a bunch of contributions from others associated with the Egypt Exploration Society.

As a result, though it’s a lovely volume with some good (full-colour) photographs of various finds, it has a somewhat disjointed feel; there are extra sections with info that repeats from the main objects and vice versa, and it doesn’t quite feel like a cohesive narrative. Some of the objects are related to each other, but most stand alone, and I think it could’ve benefited by being a bit more drawn together.

Still, there are some good photos and good choices of object, and they make a good point about the later periods being less interesting to archaeologists and treated as a “decline”, while still actually producing amazing monuments equal in quality to before. It’s a bias that comes out of the fascination with a particular period of ancient Egypt, and isn’t necessarily the full truth.

As someone who knows a fair bit about ancient Egypt, a lot of the extra info wasn’t necessary for me — but would definitely help orient someone who knows less about it.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)