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The Wisdom of Egypt edited by Peter Ucko and Timothy Champion, UCL Press, £25, ISBN 1844720055, part of the “Encounters with Ancient Egypt” series* Reviewed by Nick Saunders

PYRAMIDS, the Sphinx, hieroglyphs and mummies: these icons of ancient Egypt appear everywhere, from Hollywood to holiday brochures. They lend a false familiarity to this strange and alluring land and its culture. Academic work about Egypt, however, reaches few people. The self-imposed isolation of Egyptology has a lot to answer for.

In a remarkable publishing feat, Peter Ucko of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London has set a new agenda. As series editor of the eight books in “Encounters with Ancient Egypt”, he has overseen an ambitious project that punches holes through the suffocating walls surrounding Egyptology. Through these blow the fresh winds of theories, ideas and approaches that have been revitalising mainstream archaeology.

In content and design these books are a revelation, exploring every aspect of our fascination with Egypt. Travel writing, film, novels and opera (Aida, of course), rub shoulders with assessments of Egypt in medieval Arabic writings. As an arena for European colonialism with Napoleon’s invasion in 1798, Egypt inspired the monumental publication Description de l’Égypte, which itself gave birth to Egyptology. The enduring influence of Egyptomania can be seen in art and architecture from Harrods in London to St Petersburg and beyond.

We see how stereotypes are reinforced by selling fakes, replicas and trinkets in a Mamluk bazaar in Cairo, and how the oligarchic pharaonic system appealed to European colonial powers and was duly appropriated. We learn how the exiled Portuguese government in 19th-century Brazil divorced ancient from Islamic Egypt, reacting to the memory of Moorish rule on the Iberian Peninsula. Insights are acute and seemingly endless, such as an account of how the British viewed the Christian Copts as sole successors to pharaonic civilisation, neatly airbrushing out generations of Islamic presence.

More traditional themes are not ignored. There are accounts of Egypt’s role in the Bronze Age, from the trade in stone vases to encounters with Hittites, and the later use of pharaonic symbols by the Ptolemaic successors of Alexander the Great. Egyptian views of the world beyond itself, and its relationships with the rest of Africa, are dealt with at length.

These provocative and colourful books promise to transform perceptions of ancient Egypt for scholar and layreader alike. In conception and production, they represent a quantum leap forward in our understanding of Egyptian civilisation.