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12+ Works 231 Membros 4 Reviews

About the Author

Christina Riggs is Professor of the History of Visual Culture, Durham University, and specializes in the history of photography, Egyptian art and archaeology. She is the author of several books, including Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a Century (2021) and Ancient Egyptian Magic: A Hands-On mostrar mais Guide (2020). mostrar menos

Obras de Christina Riggs

Associated Works

Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World (2018) — Contribuinte — 18 cópias
The Oxford Handbook of Roman Sculpture (2015) — Contribuinte — 15 cópias

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Sexo
female

Membros

Resenhas

This is a fresh, and very interesting, perspective Egyptology in general, not just that relating to Tutankhamun. Though this book's subject relates, mostly, to Tutankhamun. Somewhat ironically, though the book rightly criticizes the West's co-opting of Egypt's history and archaeology, and the lamentable failure of Westerners to give proper credit to the Egyptians involved in Egyptology, this book itself gives proportionally short shrift to how Egyptians have themselves historically viewed and interacted with their own history and monuments. Which makes it a good critique of Western actions relating to both Egyptology and Tutankhamun, but still leaves Egyptian actions as to both mostly unexplored except where one can read between the lines of Western actions. I'd nevertheless highly recommend this book.… (mais)
½
 
Marcado
tnilsson | Oct 5, 2023 |
THE WESTERN OASES by OLAF E. KAPER
CITY OF THE DEAD Tuna el-Gebel KATJA LEMBKE
 
Marcado
Sergio_Volpi | Mar 21, 2023 |
Review of Egypt: Lost Civilizations, by Christina Riggs
by Stan Prager (4-13-19)


Apparently, Sigmund Freud spent the final year of his long and productive life as a refugee from the Nazi menace, in a house in London that is now a museum to his legacy. On the great exile’s preserved desk still sits a good number of statuettes from ancient cultures that he collected, including on one corner a carved stone baboon—known as the “Baboon of Thoth”—symbolic of that ancient Egyptian deity identified with both writing and wisdom. “Freud’s housekeeper recalled that he often stroked the smooth head of the stone baboon, like a favourite pet.” [p13] This anecdote serves as an introduction to Egypt, by Christina Riggs, a 2017 addition to the wonderful Lost Civilizations series that also features volumes devoted to the Etruscans, the Persians, and the Goths.
I was so taken by one of these—The Indus, by Andrew Robinson—that I put the others on a birthday list later fulfilled by my wonderful wife, so I now own the remainder of the set, each one destined to sit in queue in my ever-lengthening TBR until its time arrives. Egypt came up first. But it turns out that Riggs’ book stands apart from the others because it is not at all a history of Egyptian civilization, but rather a studied essay on the numerous ways that ancient Egypt came to be understood by subsequent cultures, its historical record manipulated and frequently distorted to support forced interpretations that suited its various interpreters. The toolkit deployed to construct sometimes elaborate visions that reflected far more kindly upon the later civilizations that succeeded it rather than accurately representing the ancient one that inspired these included its monumental architecture, its tomb painting, its mummified dead, its hieroglyphs, even abstract and unfounded notions of race and superiority—as well as, of course, objets d'art like the “Baboon of Thoth.”
Riggs, whose background is in art and archaeology, writes well and presents a series of articulate arguments to support her examination of all the ways Egypt has echoed down through the ages. It is often overlooked that to the first century Roman tourists who scribbled graffiti on tombs in the Nile valley, the pyramids of Giza were more ancient by half a millennium than those long-dead Romans are to us today! So, it is a very long echo indeed. Alas, for all of Rigg’s talent, I myself made a poor audience for her narrative. I opened the cover yearning to learn more about Egypt, not more about how we recall it. I might not have made the mistake had I noticed at the outset how her title—which is absent the definitive article—differed from the others in the series. There is The Indus, The Barbarians, The Etruscans. Riggs’ edition is simply Egypt. That should have been a clue! But that is, as we say on the street, “my bad,” not the author’s. Despite this, I did find enough to hold my interest, to finish the book, and to recommend it—but only to those with a far greater interest in art history and interpretation than I possess.

Review of Egypt: Lost Civilizations, by Christina Riggs https://regarp.com/2019/04/13/review-of-egypt-lost-civilizations-by-christina-ri...
… (mais)
 
Marcado
Garp83 | Apr 13, 2019 |
Exactly what you want from the Very Short Introduction series but don't always get: a clear, concise, and engaging overview of a topic. Recommended.
 
Marcado
giovannigf | Jan 16, 2015 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
12
Also by
3
Membros
231
Popularidade
#97,643
Avaliação
4.0
Resenhas
4
ISBNs
37
Idiomas
1

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