Reflections of Osiris

Book excerpt: This absorbing book approaches the perennially fascinating history of ancient Egypt in a highly original way. Egyptologist John Ray has chosen twelve lives drawn from across the three millennia of that civilization to illuminate it. Some are famous: Imhotep, Egypt's Leonardo, royal architect (of the Step Pyramid), inventor of stone building and seer; Hatshepsut, the female Pharaoh, Egypt's Gloriana; Horemheb, self-made politician and general and finally king, who cleaned up the mess after Akhenaten and Tutankhamun; the legendary magician Pharaoh - Nectanebo II, the greatest builder of temples. The lives of others much less famous have been preserved thanks to the desert: Heqanakhte, a cantankerous peasant farmer who has problems with his sons - and they with their stepmother; Prince Khaemwise, son of the megalomaniac Rameses II, High Priest of Ptah and restorer of ancient monuments - the first Egyptologist; Petiese, a scribe whose petition to the authorities preserves a feud stretching back over generations that has poisoned the temple-based economy of a small town. Most fascinating of all perhaps are the people of the Serapeum: a Greek recluse, his brother, rootless adolescent and police informer, two temple dancers with financial difficulties, and a temple scribe, whom we can briefly come to know intimately, even their dreams. Last is the god Osiris, judge of the netherworld, creator of the land of Egypt, before whom all the above believed they would appear at the end of their lives.