Conversations with Mummies: New Light on the Lives of Ancient Egyptians Book

The grisly but imperious mummified head of Ramesses the Great stares from the page, communicating with another time. Science is telling us more and more about ancient Egyptians and also about our own bodies (particularly our diseases) by comparison. Studying ancient remains "is a two-way conversation". With its gold cover, Conversations with Mummies looks like a present and its glossy style shouts popular appeal. Written by a non-specialist, Rick Archibald, with Rosalie David, Keeper of Egyptology at the Manchester Museum, this approachable book takes as its underlying theme the story of the work of the Manchester Mummy Project, a "world leader" in the medical analysis of mummies. In addition, it introduces the history of Egyptology and provides background information on ancient Egypt. Descriptions of mummy autopsies and a modern mummification reconstruction grab the imagination, as do several daily life stories of individual Egyptians gleaned from their mummies. Particularly attractive and absorbing, this book can also be thought provoking. When discussing the contrast between how the ancient Egyptians saw themselves and the evident modern view of a disease-ridden population rife with "chronic pain", it is particularly intriguing. Rosalie David feels an almost personal relationship with the mummies she studies and the book emphasises how mummies are now valued as records of individual lives. As Archibald writes, "Egyptian paleopathology, mummy science, is about life: life in ancient times and life today". --Karen TileyRead More