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Egyptian Mythology
A Traveler's Guide from Aswan to Alexandria
Garry J. ShawA unique approach to Egyptian mythology that takes the reader on a tour up the Nile, stopping at the most famous monuments and vividly retelling the myths connected to each site
Garry J. Shaw guides us on an entertaining and inventive tour up the Nile, through a beautiful and fascinating landscape populated with a rich mythology: the stories of Horus, Isis, Osiris and their enemies and allies, stories of vengeance, tragedy and fantastic metamorphoses. This traveler’s guide to mythology not only retells these stories but reconnects them to the temples and monuments that still stand today, offering a fresh look at the most visited sites of Egypt.
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Hardbound
272 pp.59 illus.
The Treasures of Tutankhamun
Garry J. ShawThis beautifully illustrated book brings to life the greatest treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun. Fifty of the most important objects on display today are each accompanied by a short, accessible text giving the reader just enough information to understand their relevance and importance while retaining a sense of wonder at these ancient artefacts.
Each carefully selected object is presented with a full-page color image and a facing text explaining what the object is, where it was found and why it was buried with the young pharaoh. There are quotes throughout the text from Howard Carter on his discovery of the tomb in 1922. An introduction by the esteemed Egyptologist Garry Shaw gives a brief overview of the history of ancient Egypt and sets out what we know about the life and times of the young king. He offers a graphic depiction of the dramatic story of the discovery and opening of the tomb by Howard Carter in 1922, and touches on the latest theories and scientific work that has taken place, as well as explaining what is still left to be discovered and the controversial nature of some of the latest interpretations.
This is the perfect pocket-sized companion for anyone visiting the Tutankhamun exhibition traveling around the world, the New Egyptian Museum in Giza or any of the renowned collections of Egyptology in museums across the world.
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Hardbound
192 pp.65 color illus.
16.5X12cm
The Treasures of Tutankhamun
Garry J. ShawThis beautifully illustrated book brings to life the greatest treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun. Fifty of the most important objects on display today are each accompanied by a short, accessible text giving the reader just enough information to understand their relevance and importance while retaining a sense of wonder at these ancient artefacts.
Each carefully selected object is presented with a full-page color image and a facing text explaining what the object is, where it was found and why it was buried with the young pharaoh. There are quotes throughout the text from Howard Carter on his discovery of the tomb in 1922. An introduction by the esteemed Egyptologist Garry Shaw gives a brief overview of the history of ancient Egypt and sets out what we know about the life and times of the young king. He offers a graphic depiction of the dramatic story of the discovery and opening of the tomb by Howard Carter in 1922, and touches on the latest theories and scientific work that has taken place, as well as explaining what is still left to be discovered and the controversial nature of some of the latest interpretations.
This is the perfect pocket-sized companion for anyone visiting the Tutankhamun exhibition traveling around the world, the New Egyptian Museum in Giza or any of the renowned collections of Egyptology in museums across the world.
...read more
Hardbound
192 pp.65 color illus.
16.5X12cm
Life Histories of Theban Tombs
Transdisciplinary Investigations of a Cluster of Rock-cut Tombs at Sheikh ‘Abd al-Qurna
Edited by Andrea Loprieno-GnirsA thorough transdisciplinary archaeological study of the ancient Egyptian Theban rock-cut tombs at Sheikh ‘Abd al-Qurna
In recent years, archeological research has undergone major changes. The material turn in archaeology and related disciplines prompted the adoption of sophisticated scientific, digital, and technical approaches and methods often conducted on a micro level, enhancing our understanding of depositional processes and of the creation and life of an archeological object.
This volume reflects seven seasons of transdisciplinary archaeological research at a cluster of rock-cut tombs in Sheikh ‘Abd al-Qurna, an ancient Egyptian hillside cemetery and part of the much larger Theban Necropolis. Organized in twelve main chapters, Life Histories of Theban Tombs presents current investigations in landscape archaeology (including recent excavations at a large debris hill previously covering a tomb), geo- and bioarcheology, the archaeology of tomb construction, burial practices, and domestic uses as well as various epigraphical, visual, and material studies. The last two sections provide additional insight into the applied recording, surveying, and visualization methods and techniques and the database system used for data recording and organization.
Contributors’ Affiliations:
- Martina Aeschlimann-Langer, Basel, Switzerland
- Zulema Barahona-Mendieta, University of Basel, Switzerland
- Susanne Bickel, University of Basel, Switzerland
- Oliver Bruderer, Zurich, Switzerland
- Rachael Colldeweih, Nagra, Wettingen, Switzerland
- Lucía Díaz-Iglesias Llanos, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain
- Xavier Droux, Hierakonpolis Expedition, Oxford, England
- Stéphane Fetler, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
- Zan Gojcic, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), Switzerland
- Charlotte Hunkeler, University of Basel, Switzerland
- Mahmoud Ibrahim, University of Cairo, Egypt
- Matjaž Kačičnik, Cairo, Egypt
- Iwona Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin, University of Manchester, England
- Lara Selina Kurmann, University of Basel, Switzerland
- Andrea Loprieno-Gnirs, University of Basel, Switzerland
- Sabrina Meyer, Canton of Zurich, Switzerland
- Matthias Müller, University of Basel, Switzerland
- Julianna K. Paksi, University of Basel and École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, France
- Erico Peintner, Cairo, Egypt
- Matthew A. Perras, York University, Toronto, Canada
- Lukas Richner, canton of Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland
- Frank Rühli, University of Zurich, Switzerland
- Marina Sartori, University of Basel, Switzerland
- Nadine Schönhütte, Cologne Institute of Conservation Sciences (CICS), Cologne, Germany
- Roger Seiler, University of Zurich, Switzerland
- Stephan M. Unter, University of Basel, Switzerland
- André J. Veldmeijer, American University in Cairo, Egypt
- Noémi Villars, University of Basel, Switzerland
- Andreas Wieser, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), Switzerland
- Andrea Wolter, ETH Engineering Geology Group, Zurich, Switzerland
- Martin Ziegler, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, (ETH), Switzerland
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15 September 2021
Hardbound
200 pp.113 color illus.
22X29cm
69.95
The Birds of Egypt and the Middle East
Richard HoathThe essential field guide to the birds of Egypt and the Middle East by a leading naturalist, stunningly illustrated with full-color photography
This compact, incisive photographic identification guide to 280 bird species in Egypt and the Middle East shows the region’s most commonly seen, unique, and endemic species, and is perfect for resident and visitor alike. Each bird species is illustrated with a high-quality full-color photograph, accompanied by a detailed description, which includes nomenclature, size, distribution, habits, and habitat. The user-friendly introduction covers biogeography, migration, bird topography, and a glossary. Also included is an all-important checklist of all of the birds of Egypt encompassing, for each species, its common and scientific name as well as its status in each country and its global International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) status.
To read an excerpt, click here.
For the Table of Contents, click here.
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Paperback
176 pp.300 color photos
13x18cm
12.99
Childhood in Ancient Egypt
Amandine MarshallTranslated by Colin Clement
A groundbreaking account of how the ancient Egyptians perceived children and childhood, from the Predynastic period to the end of the New Kingdom
There could be no society, no family, and no social recognition without children. The way in which children were perceived, integrated, and raised within the family and the community established the very foundations of Egyptian society. Childhood in Ancient Egypt is the most comprehensive attempt yet published to reconstruct the everyday life of children from the Predynastic period to the end of the New Kingdom. Drawing on a vast wealth of textual, iconographic, and archaeological sources stretching over a period of 3,500 years, Amandine Marshall pieces together the portrait of a society in which children were ever-present in a multiplicity of situations.
The ancient sources are primarily the expressions of male adults, who were little inclined to take an interest in the condition of the child, and the feelings of young Egyptians and all that touches on their emotional state can never be deduced from the sources. Nevertheless, by cross-referencing and comparing thousands of documents, Marshall has been able to explore how ancient Egyptians perceived children and childhood, and whether children had a particular status in the eyes of the law, society, and the Egyptian state. She examines the maintenance of the child and the care expended on its being, and discusses the kinds of clothing, jewelry, and hairstyles children wore, the activities that punctuated their daily lives, the kinds of games and toys they enjoyed, and what means were employed to protect them from illness, evil spirits, or ghosts.
Illustrated with 160 drawings and photographs, this book sheds unprecedented light upon the experience of childhood in ancient Egypt and represents a major contribution to the growing field of ancient-world childhood studies.
To read an excerpt, click here.
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15 May 2022
Hardbound
298 pp.160 b&w illus. & 12 tables
15X23cm
59.95
The Story of the Banned Book
Naguib Mahfouz's Children of the Alley
Mohamed ShoairTranslated by Humphrey Davies
An award-winning account of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s most controversial novel and the fierce debates that it provoked
Naguib Mahfouz’s novel Children of the Alley has been in the spotlight since it was first published in Egypt in 1959. It has been at times banned and at others allowed, sold sometimes under the counter and sometimes openly on the street, often pirated and only recently legally reprinted. It has inspired anxiety among the secular authorities, rage within the religious right, and a drawing of battles lines among Arab intellectuals and writers. It dogged Mahfouz like a curse throughout the remainder of his career, led to his attempted assassination, and sparked a public debate that continues to this day, even after the author’s death in 2006. It is Egypt’s iconic novel, in whose mirror millions have seen themselves, their society, and even the universe, some finding truth, others blasphemy.
In this award-winning account, Mohamed Shoair traces the story of Mahfouz’s novel as a cultural and political object, from its first publication to the present via Mahfouz’s award of the Nobel prize for literature in 1988 and the attempt on his life in 1994. He presents the arguments that swirled about the novel and the wide cast of Egyptian figures, from state actors to secular intellectuals and Islamists, who took part in them. He also contextualizes the interactions among the principal characters, interactions that have done much to shape the country’s present.
Extensively researched and written in a lucid, accessible style, The Story of the Banned Book is both a gripping work of investigative journalism and a window onto some of the fiercest debates around culture and religion to have taken place in Egyptian society over the past half-century.
To read an excerpt, click here.
For the Table of Contents, click here.
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5 February 2022
Hardbound
256 pp.29.95
Cinematic Cairo
Egyptian Urban Modernity from Reel to Real
Edited by Nezar AlSayyadHeba Safey Eldeen
A history of urban modernity in Cairo through cinema
The relationship between the city and cinema is formidable. The images and sounds of the city found in movies are perhaps the only experience that many people will have of cities they may never visit. Films influence the way we construct images of the world, and accordingly, in many instances, how we operate within it. Cinematic Cairo: Egyptian Urban Modernity from Reel to Real offers a history of Cairo’s urban modernity using film as the primary source of exploration, and cinematic space as both an analytical tool and a medium of critique. Cairo has provided rich subject material for Egypt’s film industry since the inception of the art form at the end of the nineteenth century. The “reel” city—imagined, perceived, and experienced—provides the spatial domain that mirrors change and allows for an interrogation of the “real” city as it encountered modernity over the course of a century.
Bringing together chapters by architects and art and literary historians, this volume explores this parallel and convergent relationship through two sections. The first uses films from the 1930s to the end of the twentieth century to illustrate the development of a modern Cairo and its modern subjects. The second section is focused on tracing the transformation of the cinematic city under conditions of neoliberalism, religious fundamentalism, and gender tensions. The result is a comprehensive narrative of the urban modernity of one of the most important cities in the Arab world and Global South.
Contributors:
Ahmed H. AbdelAzim, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Khaled Adham, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Germany
Kinda AlSamara, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia
Nezar AlSayyad, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Doaa Al Amir, October 6th University, Cairo, Egypt
Farah Gendy, Raef Fahmi Architects, Cairo, Egypt
Hala A. Hassanien, Architect, Wasl, Cairo, Egypt
Tayseer Khairy, Arab Academy for Science Technology & Maritime Transport, Cairo, Egypt
Mariam Marei, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Ameer Saad, Architect, Dar Al-Handasa, Cairo, Egypt
Heba Safey Eldeen, Misr International University, Cairo, Egypt
Mohammad Salama, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, USA
Nour Sobhi, Misr International University, Cairo, Egypt
Sherin Soliman, Misr International University, Cairo, Egypt
Mirette Aziz, Misr International University, Egypt
To read an excerpt, click here.
For the Table of Contents, click here.
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7 October 2022
Hardbound
432 pp.74 b&w illus.
15X23cm
49.95
Alif 41
Literature, History, and Historiography
Edited by Ziad ElmarsafyA wide-ranging exploration of the relationship between history and literature
This issue of Alif explores the relationship between literature and history. What do history and literature have to say to each other? What can literature say that history cannot, and vice versa? Do they work with or against each other? How does the literary dimension of history affect its status, and how does the historicity of literature, in turn, shape its being? What would it mean to speak of a “literariness of history” today? The terms “literature” and “history” in our title are intended to be construed in the broadest possible sense and to cover the widest possible range of genres and modalities of literary and historical writing. The recent proliferation of epithets and sub-disciplines in the study of both literature and history has fundamentally changed both fields while raising further questions about the possibility of scholarly debates that traverse them.
Contributors
– Balthazar I. Beckett, American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
– Mohamed Birairi, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef, Egypt, and the American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
– Ziad Dallal, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, USA
– Karim Elsaiad, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
– Itzea Goikolea-Amiano, SOAS, University of London, London, UK
– Rebecca Ruth Gould, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
– Magdi Guirguis, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr al-Sheikh, Egypt
– Isabelle Hesse, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
– Abdullah Ibrahim, literary critic
– Madonna Kalousian, independent scholar
– Céza Kassem, independent scholar
– Ahmed F. Khaleel, University of York, York, UK
– Tarif Khalidi, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
– Peter Kornicki, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
– Wen-chi Li, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
– Azza Madian, Cairo Conservatoire and American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
– Francesca Orsini, SOAS, University of London, London, UK
– Daniel Rivet, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France
– Anne C. Vila, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
To read an excerpt, click here.
For the Table of Contents, click here.
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1 March 2022
Paperback
596 pp.16.5X24cm
75
Educating Egypt
Civic Values and Ideological Struggles
Linda HerreraThe everyday practices, policy ideas, and ideological and political battles that have shaped Egyptian education, from the era of nation-building in the twentieth century to the age of digital disruption in the twenty-first
From the 1952 revolution onward, a main purpose of formal education in Egypt was to socialize children and youth into adopting certain attitudes and behaviors conducive to the regimes in power. Control by the state over education was never entirely hegemonic. Egyptian education came increasingly under pressure due to a combination of the growing privatization of the education sector, the growth of political Islam, and rapidly changing digital technologies.
Educating Egypt traces the everyday practices, policy ideas, and ideological and political and economic contests over education from the era of nation-building in the twentieth century to the age of global change and digital disruption in the twenty-first. Its overarching theme is that schooling and education, broadly defined, have consistently mirrored larger debates about what constitutes the model citizen and the educated person. Drawing on three decades of ethnographic research inside Egyptian schools and among Egyptian youth, Linda Herrera asks what happens when education actors harbor fundamentally different ideas about the purpose, provision, and meaning of education. Her research shows that, far from serving as a unifying social force, education is in reality an ongoing battleground of interests, ideas, and visions of the good society.
To read an excerpt, click here.
For the Table of Contents, click here.
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5 May 2022
Paperback
264 pp.14 b&w illus.
15 x 23cm
29.95
When Parliaments Ruled the Middle East
Iraq and Syria, 1946–63
Matthieu ReyAn essential study of parliamentary politics in postwar Iraq and Syria, before the consolidation of authoritarian rule under the Ba’th Party
When Parliaments Ruled the Middle East explores three main interrelated issues to clarify what happened between 1946 and 1963 in Iraq and Syria: how and why a parliamentary system prevailed in both countries in the aftermath of the Second World War; what social effects this system triggered, and, in turn, how these changes affected the system; and finally, why the elites in both countries were unable to overcome the unrest that brought an end to both a liberal era and to a certain kind of political game.
Drawing on a vast array of sources and rich archival research in French, English, and Arabic, Matthieu Rey highlights the processes of the parliamentary system in the modern era, which are very common to post-independence countries and to any representative regime. He tackles the intersection of multifaceted political phenomena that were present in that moment in Iraq and Syria, including regular elections, the implementation of emergency law, the freedom of the press, the open expression of opinions, the formation of new political parties, frequent military coups, and the joint exercise of power by members of the old classes and reformist newcomers.
Treating this period as neither an epilogue of the liberal order nor a prelude to authoritarianism, and stressing the contingent, improvisatory aspects of political history, Rey fundamentally questions the transitional nature of the period and in doing so proposes new ways and tools of examining it.
To read an excerpt, click here.
For the Table of Contents, click here.
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10 April 2022
Hardbound
344 pp.15 x 23cm
60
Fish, Milk, Tamarind
A Book of Egyptian Arabic Food Expressions
Dalal Abo El SeoudIllustrated by Farah Shafie
A delightfully illustrated selection of 100 commonly used Egyptian food expressions
Can you guess what Egyptians mean when they say that something is “a peeled banana” or that someone is “sleeping in honey” or has “turned the sea to tahini”? You may find the answers quite unexpected when you open the pages of this delightful giftbook featuring some one hundred popular food-inflected phrases and sayings used by native speakers of Egyptian Arabic.
Idiomatic expressions lend color, dynamism, and humor to everyday speech, and convey complex ideas and beliefs with an economy of words that also tell us something about the culture from which they spring. Each expression in Fish, Milk, Tamarind is given in Arabic script and English transliteration followed by its literal and intended meanings, while humorous color illustrations throughout help readers visualize and remember the expressions. Learners and native speakers of Arabic, as well as Egypt enthusiasts and language lovers will find much in this book to teach, entertain, and enthrall them.
To read an excerpt, click here.
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7 July 2022
Hardbound
172 pp.14.95
Biographies of Port Said
Everydayness of State, Dwellers, and Strangers: Cairo Papers in Social Science Vol. 36, No. 1
Mostafa MohieA study of how the city of Port Said was created, and its spaces mutually produced and transformed through the practices of both dwellers and the state
Founded in 1859, as part of the Suez Canal project and named after Khedive Said, the city of Port Said has always stood at the juncture of global, national, and local networks of forces, the city itself a reflection of many layers of Egypt’s modern history, from its colonial past through to the eras of national liberation and neoliberalism.
Drawing on Bruno Latour’s and Henri Lefebvre’s conceptual works, this study examines how the ‘social’ (encompassing all aspects of human life—the political, the economic, and the social) of the city of Port Said was created, and how its spaces were mutually produced and transformed through the practices of both dwellers and the state. Looking also at the temporality of these processes, Mostafa Mohie examines three key moments: al-tahgir (the forced migration that followed the outbreak of the 1967 war and remained until 1974, when Port Saidians were permitted to return to their homes following the 1973 October War); the declaration of the free trade zone in the mid-1970s; and the Port Said Stadium massacre in 2012.
To read an excerpt, click here.
For the Table of Contents, click here.
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3 March 2021
e-book
24.95This book is only available for purchase from Egypt
Amarna
A Guide to the Ancient City of Akhetaten
Anna StevensAn illustrated cultural guide to the archaeological site of Amarna, the best-preserved pharaonic city in Egypt Around three thousand years ago, the pharaoh Akhenaten turned his back on Amun, and most of the great gods of Egypt. Abandoning Thebes, he quickly built a grand new city in Middle Egypt, Akhetaten—Horizon of the Aten—devoted exclusively to the sun god Aten. Huge open-air temples served the cult of Aten, while palaces were decorated with painted pavements and inlaid wall reliefs. Akhenaten created a new royal burial ground deep in a desert valley, and his officials built elaborate tombs decorated with scenes of the king and his city. As thousands of people moved to Akhetaten, it became the most important city in Egypt. But it was not to last. Akhenaten’s death brought the abandonment of his city and an end to one of the most startling episodes in Egyptian history.
Today, Akhetaten is known as Amarna, a sprawling archaeological site in the province of Minya, halfway between Cairo and Luxor. With its beautifully decorated tombs and vast mud-brick ruins, it is the best-preserved pharaonic city in Egypt. This informed and richly illustrated guidebook brings the ancient city of Akhetaten alive with a keen insider’s eye, drawing on ongoing archaeological research and the knowledge and insight of Amarna’s modern-day communities and caretakers to explain key monuments and events, while offering invaluable practical advice for visiting the site. With over 150 illustrations, maps, and plans, Amarna is both an ideal introduction for visitors to Amarna and a window onto the extraordinary reign of Akhenaten.
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12 September 2022
Paperback
198 pp.149 illus, 7 maps
19X24cm
29.95
The Boy and the Boy King (Audio)
George H. LewisA. D. Lubow
Read by George H. Lewis
A boy and his stuffed bunny gaze at a star-lit New York cityscape. The great Sphinx of Egypt sleeps. A child swings joyously across a river. This book offers a tantalizing glimpse of the adventures of Arthur and his imaginary friend, Bun-Bun. Together they travel through the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum to another time and place and befriend the lonely boy king, Tutankhamun.
A 2021 International Book Awards finalist in the Children’s Picture Book: Hardcover Fiction category.
The audio book is available through Amazon, Kobo and Libro.fm.
To read about The Boy and the Boy King, click here. The book is available on Amazon.com and Bookshop.org.
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Audio
32 minutesThis book is currently not available for purchase.
Ancient Egyptian Architecture in Fifteen Monuments
Felix ArnoldAn authoritatively written overview of ancient Egyptian architecture from the point of view of an archaeologist and architectural historian
The monuments of ancient Egypt have held scholars and tourists in their thrall for centuries. The sheer mass of the pyramids of Giza, the interaction of the temples at Deir al-Bahari with the natural environment, and the use of light in the hypostyle hall of Karnak all make these buildings world-class masterpieces of architecture, rivaling those of Greece and Rome.
Ancient Egyptian Architecture in Fifteen Monuments presents an authoritative overview of Egyptian architecture from the point of view of an archaeologist and architectural historian with decades of fieldwork experience in Egypt and elsewhere. It focuses on fifteen selected masterpieces, from well-known structures such as the Bent Pyramid in Dahshur and the temple of Horus at Edfu to lesser-known monuments in Hierakonpolis, Abydos, Hawara, and Bubastis, each building representing an important stage in the development of Egyptian architecture and a different vision of what architecture should aspire to achieve.
Using sixty reconstruction drawings and black-and-white photographs, Felix Arnold presents new insights into form, meaning, and the organization of space, providing a fresh perspective on ancient Egyptian culture and society.
To read an excerpt, click here.
For the Table of Contents, click here.
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Hardbound
144 pp.60 b&w illus.
24x19cm
69.95
Dust
Egypt's Forgotten Architecture (Revised and Expanded Edition)
Xenia NikolskayaA stunning photographic compilation of Egypt’s abandoned palaces and grand buildings
Between 1860 and 1940, Cairo and other large cities in Egypt witnessed a major construction boom that gave birth to extraordinary palaces and lavish buildings. These incorporated a mix of architectural styles, such as Beaux-Arts and Art Deco, with local design influences and materials. Today, many lie empty and neglected, rapidly succumbing to time, a real-estate frenzy, and an ongoing population crisis.
In 2006 Russian-born photographer Xenia Nikolskaya began the process of documenting these structures. She gained exceptional access to them, taking photographs at some thirty locations, including Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor, Minya, Esna, and Port Said. These photographs were documented in the first edition of Dust: Egypt’s Forgotten Architecture, which soon after its release in 2012 became a rare collector’s item.
This revised and expanded edition includes photographs from the first edition together with extra unseen images and new photographs taken by Nikolskaya between 2013 and 2021. It also includes previously unpublished essays by Heba Farid, co-owner of the Cairo-based photo gallery Tintera, and architect and urban planner Omar Nagati, co-founder of CLUSTER, an urban design and research platform also in Cairo.
Dust: Egypt’s Forgotten Architecture leads us seductively into some of the most breathtaking architectural spaces of Egypt’s recent past, filled with a sense of both the immense weight and impermanence of history.
Click here for an excerpt.
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8 December 2022
Hardbound
160 pp.82 color
15X23cm
39.95
A Face in Time
Egypt Photo Studios, 1865–1939
Edited by Sherif BoraieIntroduction by Youssef Rakha
From the invention of the camera, photographers, like painters, have sought to portray other people, and early studio photographs, with their highly stylized props, poses, and costumes, offer a beguiling window onto the prevailing fashions, tastes, and attitudes of their time. The portraits in this book, Egyptian studio photos from the mid-nineteenth century to the Second World War, tell such a story, their popularity and art then driven by the burgeoning presence of photo studios across the country.
In their rich variety, they offer vivid evidence of the democratization of the image as access to the technology spread from members of Egypt’s royalty to an ever-wider circle of subjects. But, more than that, they freeze time, by capturing human subjects that are no longer there. These portraits, and the studios that created them, evoke haunting fragments of a vanished past and invite us to endless speculation and contemplation. In the age of the selfie, their power to speak to us from the mists of time cannot be overstated. Includes over 200 stunning images, from the work of 81 photographic studios.
To read an excerpt, click here.
For the TOC, click here.
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Hardbound
240 pp.124 color and 83 b&w illus.
32x30cm
100
The Men Who Swallowed the Sun
A Novel
Hamdi Abu GolayyelTranslated by Humphrey Davies
This gritty tale of two men’s ill-conceived quest for a better life via the deserts of the Middle East and the cities of Europe is pure storytelling
Two Bedouin men from Egypt’s Western Desert seek to escape poverty through different routes. One—the intellectual, terminally self-doubting, and avowedly autobiographical Hamdi—gets no further than southern Libya’s fly-blown oasis of Sabha, while his cousin—the dashing, irrepressible Phantom Raider—makes it to the fleshpots of Milan.
The backdrop of this darkly comic and unsentimental story of illegal immigration is a brutal Europe and Muammar Gaddafi’s rickety, rhetoric-propped Great State of the Masses, where “the Leader” fantasizes of welding Libyan and Egyptian Bedouin into a new self-serving political force, the Saad-Shin.
Compelling and visceral, with a seductive, muscular irony, The Men Who Swallowed the Sun is an unforgettable novel of two men and their fellow migrants and the extreme marginalization that drives them.
Click here to read an excerpt.
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2 May 2022
Paperback
216 pp.14x22cm
11.99
Ancient Egyptian Statues
Their Many Lives and Deaths
Simon ConnorA fascinating, richly illustrated study of the role and significance of ancient statues in Egyptian history and belief
Why do ancient Egyptian statues so often have their noses, hands, or genitals broken? Although the Late Antiquity period appears to have been one of the major moments of large-scale vandalism against pagan monuments, various contexts bear witness to several phases of reuse, modification, or mutilation of statues throughout and after the pharaonic period. Reasons for this range from a desire to erase the memory of specific rulers or individuals for ideological reasons to personal vengeance, war, tomb plundering, and the avoidance of a curse; or simply the reuse of material for construction or the need to ritually “deactivate” and bury old statues, without the added motive of explicit hostility toward the subject in question.
Drawing on the latest scholarship and over 100 carefully selected illustrations, Ancient Egyptian Statues proceeds from a general discussion of the production and meaning of sculptures, and the mechanisms of their destruction, to review the role of ancient statuary in Egyptian history and belief. It then moves on to explore the various means of damage and their significance, and the role of restoration and reuse.
Art historian Simon Connor offers an innovative and lucidly written reflection on beliefs and practices relating to statuary, and images more broadly, in ancient Egypt, showing how statues were regarded as the active manifestations of the entities they represented, and the ways in which they could endure many lives before being finally buried or forgotten.
To read an excerpt, click here.
For the Table of Contents, click here.
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12 August 2022
Hardbound
204 pp.110 illus.
24x19cm
39.95