'Tutankhamun’s Trumpet' by Toby Wilkinson
Cliché alert: if you want to read only one book about ancient Egypt … Well, in this instance it’s true. British historian Toby Wilkinson tells everything we need to know about pharaonic Egypt through referencing 100 objects found in the tomb of the civilization’s best known (if short reigned) king. Oh, there were many more objects in King Tut’s tomb, wonderful things, undisturbed by tomb robbers until British archeologist Howard Carter discovered the site in 1922, but the 100 he chose is a cultural cross-section—statues, toys, board games, model buildings, daggers, a lock of his queen’s hair—each, like an icon, opening up a universe of meaning larger that Tutankhamun and encompassing the lives of ancient Egyptians of all classes. And Wilkinson writes beautifully, melodically. The dust of academia hasn’t settled on his prose.
