Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #149989 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 564 pages

Customer Reviews

Fantastic and lavishly illustrated introductory guide
As a pictoral guide and introduction to all the sites it's superb. Lots of information jammed into the long and narrow pages. Wonderfully colourful images. Good place to get an idea of scale of monuments and to begin to explore work of theban mapping project led by the author. The book only has 2 pages on KV5 so if you want detailed info visit the website or buy Kent's other book. Don't expect to get a definitive historical study in this- the information is secondary to the pictures.
Highly Recommended

Much,much more than a guide book
I actually live in Luxor and guide people round the sites myself so for me to buy a guide book it has to be good. This one is.

It is not a Lonely Planet giving you ticket prices and how to get there advice but a comprehensive description of the various sites, their history and what to look for. Each site has a portion on its history followed by a detailed description on visiting the site. It had masses of excellent photographs including ones taken from hot air balloons of the temple sites. There are plans and drawings a plenty detailing what to look for and where.

It has been written as a background read before you go, an onsite guide book and a souvenir to remind you of your visit and it manages to do all of these. There is loads more detail than in the more general guide books. I especially appreciated the description of the house of Sennedjem at Deir El Medina and the walk over the hills. The author Kent Weeks is currently excavating the tomb of the sons of Rameses II KV5 and is part of the Theban Mapping project so it has a lot of material from there.

My only criticism would be its lack of price information and that it doesn’t take account of how tickets are sold. Example the Nobles tombs are grouped historically but the tickets are sold by location. But as a fully detailed explanation of the sites of Luxor it can not be beaten and the photographic record is fantastic.

brilliant read!
I have many books on Egypt but none are as detailed and as easy to read as this one. It weighs heavy for it's size and is full of the most beautiful photos on glossy paper. Well worth the money and a great addition to any collection.