
How I Became a Mummy; Lost in a Pyramid & Other Classic Mummy Stories
Margaret Powis
Leena Pekkalainen; Andrew Smith, ed.
2016, AUC Press, 978-9-77416-811-6, $18.95 pb; 2016 British Library, 978-0-71235-617-6, £8.99 pb.
These books' original views of ancient Egypt will captivate a wide range of readers. How I Became a Mummy, a book "for children and Egyptologists of all ages," follows the death of a pharaoh and the mummification process through ample cartoon-like illustrations. The narrative is very easy to follow, making it a perfect book for a parent or grandparent to read to a curious child who wants to know how mummies are made. The procedure is described in detail through the dispassionate eyes of the dead pharaoh in chapters concerning subjects such as washing, gutting, the brain canopic jars and coffins. Lost in a Pyramid & Other Classic Mummy Stories is a collection of tales published between 1869 and 1910. The stories vary from horror, to romance, to comic, painting a fascinating picture of how Egypt was viewed through Western eyes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—a period of great archeological and geopolitical interest in the country. Readers will recognize some authors, notably sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Louisa May Alcott.
You may also be interested in...
Ancient Egyptians Still Have Things to Teach Us
Socrates and other Greek thinkers admired Egypt for its philosophical tradition. This new translation of a manuscript as old as the pyramids shows us why.Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature Winner Gives Voice to Marginalized
“No one else will be destined to write a life story as squalid as mine, although it’s all true,” comments the elusive protagonist of Algerian author Ahmed Taibaoui’s noir novel.Book Deconstructs Myth Surrounding Egypt’s Most-Famous Boy King
Egyptologist Aidan Dodson sifts the evidence—from tomb paintings to statuary to temple inscriptions—in his quest to recover the real King Tutankhamun.