The Mind of Egypt

History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs

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by Jan Assmann

Harvard University Press

Due/Published October 2003, 528 pages, paper

ISBN 0674012119

New in paper (F03)

The Mind of Egypt presents an account of the mainsprings of Egyptian civilization--the ideals, values, mentalities, belief systems, and aspirations that shaped the first territorial state in human history. Drawing on a range of literary, iconographic, and archaeological sources, the renowned historian Jan Assmann reconstructs a world of unparalleled complexity, a culture that, long before others, possessed an extraordinary degree of awareness and self-reflection.

"Magnificent . . . . Jan Assmann asks what meaning Egyptians obtained from their own constructions of their history. How did they incorporate the legacy of the past into the present?. . . Using three approaches--archaeological, mythic, and epigraphic or iconographic--Assmann takes us on a chronological journey, starting with the formation of the unified state in about 3100 b.c. and going through the three great kingdoms. He ends in the late period with the final whimpers of Egyptian civilization."--Brian Fagan, Los Angeles Times

"Assmann is attempting something far more ambitious [than] all the conventional books [on Egypt]. . . . What he attempts to do is pen a psychological portrait of Egyptian culture. He asks questions that are normally avoided by ancient historians . . . Assmann is close in some ways to being the Beethoven of Egyptology."--John Ray, American Scholar