Author Description

While the travelers of antiquity recognized the interest of the sites, and medieval adventurers talked of the great mysteries, it was in the 17th and 18th centuries that Egyptmania began to take Europeans in its grasp. It was Napoleon who really lit the flames and started the love affair that continues to this day. In 1798 Napoleon's mission to Egypt took with it Baron Dominique Vivant Denon, a brilliant artist and draftsman who recorded the old ruins - from the Great Pyramid at Giza and the Sphinx's head to the now lost temple of Hermopolis. Within a few years Champollion deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphs and suddenly the world became aware of a civilization that had its start over 5,000 years ago. Egyptian Pharaohs provides biographical information and illustrations of over 150 monarchs of Ancient Egypt, from the semi-mythical Narmer through to the final Hellenistic dynasty of Ptolemies. Although conquered by Assyrains, Persians, and Greeks, it was the Romans who finally brought the 33rd and last Dymnasty an end thus ending a kingdom whose rulers had included the great pyramid builders of the 4th Dynasty¿Sneferu, Khufu, Khafra and Menkaura - the brilliant pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty - Thutmose III, Amenhotop III, Hatshepsut, and the best known of them all, the boy-king Tutankhamun and the apogee of Egyptian kingship Ramsses II the Great, the ruler associated with Moses and the Isrealites; the victor over the Hittites at Kadesh; and the builder of the Ramasseum, the temple at Abu Simbel and the tomb of his consort Nefertari.