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Bill Thayer

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Readings in
Egyptian History

Histories and Source Documents

This index page links to the most important Egyptian history resources onsite; it may therefore prove useful to some. As with other pages of this kind, new material will be added from time to time. These items are all in English, unless otherwise indicated.


[image ALT: A partial view of two of the Pyramids of Egypt on which ⲙⲁⲛⲉϩⲧⲟ (Coptic for 'Manetho') is superimposed. It serves on this website as the icon for my transcription of the Loeb edition and translation of Manetho.]

Manetho: Pride of place on this page goes, as it should, to the work of an ancient Egyptian. He was a priest of the 3c B.C. who took upon himself the mission of educating the Greeks and Romans, and thru them the entire world, in Egyptian history and religion, and he succeeded: excerpted, translated, corrupted — but even 2300 years after he wrote there's enough of a kernel of fact and history for his writing to remain useful to archaeologists, historians, chronologists, and Biblical scholars. His King Lists, dividing the rulers into Dynasties, are still today the framework for the history of ancient Egypt.

[ complete English translation, and some Greek;
presented in 9 webpages ]


[image ALT: A row of Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is my icon for the Isis and Osiris, by Plutarch.]

Plutarch's De Iside et Osiride (On Isis and Osiris): Egyptian religion as viewed thru the lens of Graeco-Roman civilization. An enormous amount of information mixed in with an equal amount of Greek speculation and philosophical projection: not necessarily what the Egyptians themselves actually thought.

[ complete English translation, presented in 5 webpages ]


[image ALT: An ancient coin depicting the head of a man with curly hair and a ribbon around his head. It is a pentadrachm of Ptolemy I Soter, and serves on this website as the icon for Bevan's House of Ptolemy.]

Although showing its age, having been usefully updated or contradicted by newer works, Edwin R. Bevan's The House of Ptolemy remains one of the best and most thorough scholar­ly surveys of the Greco-Macedonian rulers of Egypt from Ptolemy I thru Cleopatra: everything that can be affirmed, and most of what can be or has been guessed or argued.

[ 393 pages of print, presented in 24 webpages ]


[image ALT: A map of the ancient city of Alexandria in Egypt; in the upper left-hand corner, a portrait-bust of Julius Caesar. The image serves as the icon for Caesar's 'Alexandrian War' on this site.]

Aulus Hirtius' Alexandrian War tells the story of Caesar's over­powering of the last Ptolemies; in just the way Caesar would have liked it to be told. (Latin, English)

[ 130 pages of print + 2 maps, presented in 7 webpages ]

Onsite link

My Antiquary's Shoebox orientation page lists a few journal articles related to ancient Egypt. They can be found quickly by searching that page for the (copyable) character .



[image ALT: Four Egyptian hieroglyphic signs: stylized crocodile scales, an owl, a schematic loaf of bread, and a crossroads in a circle — the whole of it being the ancient Egyptian word 'Kmt' = Egypt. The design serves to represent the section of my site on Egyptian history.]

The icon I use for this subsite is the hieroglyphic script for Kmt, "Egypt":

𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖


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Site updated: 1 Jul 21