The History of Ancient Egypt is one of my favourite of the Great Lectures. Dr. Bob Brier, an Egyptologist from Long Island University, has to be one oThe History of Ancient Egypt is one of my favourite of the Great Lectures. Dr. Bob Brier, an Egyptologist from Long Island University, has to be one of the most charming and energetic professors the Teaching Company has ever drafted for their learning series.
His knowledge is compelling, and he makes me want to move on from his overview and dive into multiple ages of Egyptian history. Never have Cleopatra and Sneferu, or Tutankhamun and Ramses the Great been so fascinating, and they are the most famous of a civilization that stretched for 3000+ years and is still alive today, albeit in altered fashion.
Yet I think my favourite thing about Dr. Brier's lectures was the almost total lack of "um." There was only one lecture out of the entire series wherein Bob (I felt like I could call him Bob by the end) resorted to an "um" when he was thinking of the next thing to say. It was astounding. Bob's go to is to repeat himself. Whatever cool point he's just made, he'll repeat until he has a grasp on what needs to come next. It is an amazing trick, and it makes both his lessons stick with you and makes you happy to go along for the ride.
I wish I could take a class with this man live and in person.
Archaeology is a tricky social science to engage in. One is examining distant times on the scantiest evidence, and while one may have facts at hand (oArchaeology is a tricky social science to engage in. One is examining distant times on the scantiest evidence, and while one may have facts at hand (or artifacts) what those facts meant in the past and how they would have been interpreted by the people who lived with them contemporaneously is very difficult to ascertain -- if not entirely impossible. It takes imagination on the part of the archaeologist, a natural flair for storytelling and wondering about the lives of others, but a good archaeologist must also and absolutely be able to park their own biases -- those of their own time, their indoctrinations, their religion(s), their nation(s), whatever biases they have -- they must be capable of interpreting the facts as open-mindedly as possible.
I used to think Kara Cooney was such an archaeologist.
I'd seen her documentaries with my kids, and she was compelling, a good story teller, and she seemed to be driven by her love for Egyptology first and foremost. So I was excited to listen to her narrate her own book, When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt.
It has been a while since I have been so disappointed in a read. I am willing to concede that my one star rating of When Women Ruled the World may be tainted by my own bias against books that disappoint me, but since personal bias is the stuff that reviews are made of I feel I can get away with it where Dr. Cooney can't and shouldn't.
Before I get to the problems with When Women Ruled the World let me just say that Kara Cooney's voice is wonderful to listen to; Dr. Cooney must be a hell of a professor to take a class from. She has passion, conviction, and her voice invites listeners (and I am guessing her students) into the world she is painting. Her narration is the strongest part of her book. Credit where it is due, but that's where my praise ends.
As I see it there are four major flaws in When Women Ruled the World.
1. Her Thesis -- Dr. Cooney lays out the idea that Ancient Egypt -- unlike any other civilization -- reached out to women leaders in times of crisis, and that this shift to matriarchs, albeit within an authoritarian patriarchal system, is unique in the world.
It isn't.
Unless one simply ignores other nations who have had powerful female leaders, Ancient Egypt is not unique in turning to female rulers.
Ancient Egypt spanned around 3000 years of history and had, according to Dr. Cooney, six female Pharaohs, but what of England? If we see England as an Empire (and how can we not?) that spanned almost 2000 years, they have had six female leaders as well: a bad ass tribal leader, three powerful Queens -- one of whom still sits on the throne in 2021 -- and two Prime Ministers, and they have another thousand years to go to add more female leaders and beat their Ancient Egyptian rivals. Had Cooney qualified her thesis, then, as Egypt being somehow different to England, then, perhaps, her thesis would have worked. But she didn't, and she undermined herself before she even began.
2. Her Anger with the Donald-- Now I get being pissed off that Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. I hate that prick my own self. But Dr. Cooney's constant attempts to compare Egyptian "realpolitik" to our contemporary history became increasingly ridiculous. It didn't come up once or twice, either. It was her constant go to. I don't mind attempts by archaeologists to offer contextual touchstones to their audiences, but Dr. Cooney goes far beyond offering context and way too far into the realm of false equivalency, which leads to number 3 ...
3. Her Fallaciousness -- It's not just false equivalency ... she engages in special pleading, ad hominem attacks, false dichotomy, hasty generalization and at least a couple of others I am forgetting at the moment. And her "archaeological imagination" enters the fabulist zone more than once: a zone where she tells us that we can't know anything, or that the classic authorities on a given situation have the facts wrong, yet she has the truth.
And who knows? Maybe she does have the truth, but she offers evidence for her "truths" that are tenuous at best and nonexistent at worst. If I were grading her book the way I grade my students papers, she'd be deep in the low Cs teetering on the verge of a D. And Dr. Cooney is supposed to be a respected professional.
4. Her Omissions -- Time and time again Dr. Cooney leaves information out. Whether this is in her contemporary touchstones, or her philosophical/political points, or her historical facts (often surrounding who came before a female Pharaoh and/or who came after), Dr. Cooney leaves information out of her argument that could be transformative or undermining to her argument. She merely sidesteps the criticisms she herself has raised, then does nothing to hide the elephants in her room that she, herself, has revealed. It is overwhelmingly annoying and made an interesting topic almost impossible to enjoy.
Yet I find myself coming out of this disappointing read even more keen to dive into these six amazing women of Ancient Egypt. I want to know more. I want to spend time looking at what we actually know about them, to see their artifacts, to trace their tales for myself, and I suppose, despite Dr. Cooney's failures with When Women Ruled the World, that is, in itself, a success. But I wanted more from this book and Dr. Cooney. So much more. What a bummer. ...more
It was the best of books it was the most mediocre of books. That is The Last Neanderthal in a nutshell.
When Claire Cameron's writing was back in timeIt was the best of books it was the most mediocre of books. That is The Last Neanderthal in a nutshell.
When Claire Cameron's writing was back in time, imagining Girl and Runt and the rest of the Family, The Last Neanderthal soared. Cameron's commitment to her vision of Girl as the last of her kind, to Girl's survival, and her meeting with the new people who were different from her -- but only ever so slightly different -- and were now slowly replacing her kind, her novel was compelling, heartbreaking and brave, as brave as Girl herself.
But then Cameron took us forward to the paleontologist (archaeologist?) Rosamund Gale, who has been digging up the bones of Girl (that's clear from the start so it's not a spoiler, but I won't tell you whose bones she shares her grave with) as she navigates the machinations of fellow scientists and funders and museums, all while getting deeper and deeper into her inconvenient (though wanted) pregnancy. My most fervent wish throughout The Last Neanderthal was that all of the modern parts would have been replaced by more time with Girl, but I failed to blow that eyelash off my daughter's finger, and my wish wasn't fulfilled.
Still, Cameron has a reason for her parallel tales, and despite my dislike of Dr. Gale, I could appreciate what Cameron was saying about Dr. Gale's eventual depression(view spoiler)[, post-partum depression, (hide spoiler)], but I couldn't help feeling cheated out of a more complete tale about Girl, a longer, more epic tale that was replaced by career paranoia, privileged whining and a ham-fisted "hunting trip" to IKEA.
I don't want to sound too hard on The Last Neanderthal because, in the end, I liked it well enough; it's just that my love for one half of the book was diminished by my dislike of the other, and that always bums me out. Even so, I have bought another book of Claire Cameron's because she is a strong, imaginative writer, and if she can write an entire novel with the vigour of Girl's tale, that is a novel I must read....more
Zahi Hawass is an important guy when it comes to Egyptology. He knows it, and he wants us to know it too.
He spends a great deal of time in Mountains oZahi Hawass is an important guy when it comes to Egyptology. He knows it, and he wants us to know it too.
He spends a great deal of time in Mountains of the Pharaohs dropping names, asserting his authority when it comes to the possible readings of the artefact record, and sharing anecdotes about his own finds and discoveries. Yet amidst all this self-aggrandizement is some excellent information, and a reassuring vision of how healthy the debate surrounding Egyptian finds continues to be within the community of Egyptologists.
Mountains of the Pharaohs is at its worst when Hawass gives in to his imaginings of "what might have happened" to the Pharaohs and those close to them. These fictions -- containing emotion, action, and an off-puttingly omniscient narration -- might very well be rooted in facts about the 4th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom, but they are mostly silly and annoying, offering up a fanciful vision of Hawass' utopian vision of Old Kingdom Egypt. And this utopian vision doesn't dissipate when he leaves the fiction behind. Hawass tends to read the archaeological record with a romantic view of a near perfect ancient world that was mirrored in their near perfect monuments.
The book is at its best, however, when Hawass spends some time with the common folk. The closing chapters about the regular Egyptians who were engaged in building the pyramids discusses some exceptional finds, and brings Hawass to a more balanced place in his vision of Ancient Egypt. The common Egyptian is a perspective I've always felt was poorly represented in popular Egyptology, so it was refreshing to see it here.
Finally, the reading by Simon Vance (of whom I am a fan, having only ever listened to his audio recordings of the Aubrey-Maturin books) is suitably noble and weighty, impeccably matching the voice to the source material....more
This is essential reading for anyone interested in Egyptology or the history of archaeology. Ten Years Digging in Egypt is Flinders-Petrie’s eclectic This is essential reading for anyone interested in Egyptology or the history of archaeology. Ten Years Digging in Egypt is Flinders-Petrie’s eclectic memoir of what he saw, found and studied during his decade in Egypt.
Sometimes he’s busy offering critiques of the pyramid builders �- marvelling at the genius of some (specifically in the perfection of their measurements), the laziness of others (the imperfection of their measurements) �- sometimes he’s delighting in the technology used to cut and drill stone for the pyramids, sometimes he’s growing bored with his most recent discovery and moving on, sometimes he’s doing the dirty work of a dig, sometimes he’s belittling the Fellah he hires to do the backbreaking labour, but he is always trying to uncover meaning in the antiquities he discovers (at least the ones he is interested in).
Many consider Flinders-Petrie the father of archaeology because he was the first to take seriously the need for systematic methodology at digs, and there is no denying his contribution in this area of archaeology. But the surprisingly positive opinions of Flinders-Petrie must be tempered with his numerous faults.
He was a man whose primary concern was finding artefacts and antiquities of “monetary� importance. Of course, in a time when that was everyone else’s sole concern, Flinders-Petrie appears to be a visionary in his field. He did, after all, recognize some value in other finds:
”It need hardly be said that every subject should be attended to; the excavator’s business is not to study his own specialty only, but to collect as much material as possible for the use of other students. To neglect the subjests that interest him less is ...[to] waste ... such archaeological material as may never be equalled again. (164)
But this is also the man who completely ignored areas of Naukratis because they were inhabited by commoners. This is the man who would only maintain fragments of some pottery or artefact until a more complete example appeared, and then the original find would be discarded like so much garbage.
And then there was his racism. His patronizing superiority, when it came to the Fellah (peasant workers) he worked with and lived near, took a very ugly turn in his vision of the Dynastic Rise of Egypt. He believed -- and passed on the belief to his devoted followers -- that the Pharaoh’s were a conquering Caucasian race who brought civilization to an inferior North African race of barbarians. While this opinion may simply have been a product of his time and upbringing, it was also tied to his belief in Eugenics, and these opinions tainted his analyses of many Egyptian sites.
Yet the man’s faults are an important part of Ten Years Digging in Egypt and take nothing away from its value as a memoir about the birth of archaeology. One doesn’t have to like the man to respect his contributions to his craft, and his importance as an archaeologist isn’t often overstated, even if I get the sense that he is "liked" a little too much.
Archaeology geek that I am, Ten Years Digging in Egypt was a perfect escape into a romantic past of dirt, discovery and dirty discovery. Sadly the closest I will probably come to Egypt is watching Karl Pilkington in "An Idiot Abroad." What a bummer....more
You really have to be something of an archaeology geek for Kevin Greene's Introduction: The History, Priciples and Methods of Modern Archaeology to beYou really have to be something of an archaeology geek for Kevin Greene's Introduction: The History, Priciples and Methods of Modern Archaeology to be for you.
This is not a slick book for general consumption. It is a deceptively long textbook and basic introduction to many of the issues facing archaeology throughout its long life from antiquarianism to today. It is very much for the archaeology beginner, but if you contain even a touch of interest in the subject, Greene's book should deepen your interest and give you a decent grounding in history, excavation, dating, archaeological science and a taste of how theory is coming to dominate the field.
The strongest aspect of Greene's book is the way in which he reminds us that there are few "true" answers in archaeology. Archaeology is a field that offers us artefacts without complete contexts, and the contexts we are able to generate for the artefacts, no matter how accurate they may be, are always tainted by our own biases and our present. Even radiocarbon dating, one of the great strengths of modern archaeology has a margin of error that makes perfect dating impossible.
Greene crafts a solid argument that this "imperfection" in archaeology is one of its greatest attributes, giving archaeology an exciting, mutable quality that other disciplines could benefit from.
He also strips away the recent antiquarian romanticism of Indiana Jones' grave robbing adventures, and delivers beginners with the truth about archaeology as a career -- it can be tedious and boring. Archaeology, as Greene rightly explains is often totally cerebral work. It can include the counting of thousands of kernels of pollen. It can include the meticulous cleaning of bones and remains. It can include the slow uncovering of artefacts with small shovels and brushes before undergoing a slow and equally meticulous process of preservation. It can include local politics, national politics and a constant struggle for money and against money. It can include endless hours of thinking and reading and considering. And it is a field that is shrinking as the world's finite artefacts are destroyed or gathered.
But if the reader is still interested in archaeology after all this, Greene provides the most extensive "further reading" list I have seen for quite sometime. Whatever catches your fancy, Greene's got books for you to read. And read them I will.
If there is any weakness in Greene's book it is his assumption that his readers inherently understand the lingo of archaeology -- most of his readers will be beginners, after all. He fails to provide a glossary, and quite often the terminology is indecipherable from the context of a paragraph or section.
Still, this is no reason to avoid Greene. Just grab yourself a good dictionary and you should be fine....more
Gotta be an archaeologist to really dig this book (sorry about the pun), but it is a good debate about the use of agency in archeology. It does a goodGotta be an archaeologist to really dig this book (sorry about the pun), but it is a good debate about the use of agency in archeology. It does a good job of defining the debate, introducing the concepts and then showing practical applications of differing versions of agency. ...more
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