Temples, Tombs and Hieroglyphs: A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz - Hardcover Book

Adding "a popular..." to the title perfectly describes this and lets the reader know they're about to embark upon a light reading.

Giving you the entirety of Ancient Egypt's imperial history and more, Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs seems to spend more time on its subtitle rather than the main. The leaders - seemingly every single one - gets a decent going-over, at least as much as can be known at this time. The history of Egypt is, after all, rather sketchy.

I picked this up as supplemental research for a fantasy series I'm working on. It didn't go as deep into the Indiana Jones type of traps and snares I was hoping for, but it is quite detailed about the temples and tombs, so it wasn't a total loss by any means.

Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs is not the most scholarly of works on the subject. Barbara Mertz got her degree in Egyptology back in the '50s, then spent much of her subsequent time writing mystery fiction. But again, that's a-okay for the kind of book we've got here. Mertz's offhand, cheeky tone keeps this light and enjoyable through out. It's the perfect refresher for us old folks who have forgotten much of what we learned in school.