Tale of the centuries

JOANN FLETCHER is engaged but occasionally frustrated by the third volume of a study of dynastic Egypt’s dramatic past

- JOANN FLETCHER

A History of Ancient Egypt, Volume 3: From the Shepherd Kings to the End of the Theban Monarchy
by John Romer
Allen Lane, 704 pages, £45

The third – and apparently final – volume in John Romer’s epic saga begins c1660 BC with Egypt’s Hyksos dynasty (the ‘Shepherd Kings’ of his subtitle). It covers the six centuries to the end of the Theban monarchy, more usually dubbed the New Kingdom, in c1070 BC – although the book’s final section throws in another four centuries for good measure.

I’d already read and loved pretty much all of Romer’s earlier work, which is populated by the ‘real’ Egyptians still all too often ignored by much of the Egyptological establishment. And I’ve also read the first two instalments of his History of Ancient Egypt trilogy, my main criticism of them being the lack of women mentioned within either lengthy tome.