Best guide to the Valley
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I have been to the Valley of the Kings now about 15-20 times, and for me it is still one of the most powerful and impressive places in the world. When you consider that some of the most powerful men and women were buried here, in a short period, it leaves you in awe.
Previous to reading this book, I had used the John Rohmer book, Valley of the Kings. This is also a good book, but it is not a guide, it is more a historic introduction to the Valley.
For anyone with not a great knowledge of Luxor or ancient Egypt, this is the perfect guide. It assumes no previous knowledge of the history of the area, and explains it well.
The maps and plans are usful, as they can give you an idea of what is there.
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THE COMPLETE ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER
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Nicholas and Richard have come up trumps yet again. This dynamic duo has put together a superb piece of work that acts as your passport to "The Valley". With this book in your hands you can almost be there and certainly take in fact after fact without heat, flies and sand. However, for anybody visiting The Valley this has got to be in your rucksack as an aide memoire while you seek out the tombs, burial pits and much more. These well-seasoned writers (Nicholas has written a similar book in this series, The Complete Tutankhamun and Richard the Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt) provide plans of tombs, photographs and have gone into fine detail. For those of you who need a reference work I suggest you take a look, I did and I am very happy thank you. This masterpiece has plenty of detail on the finds in each tomb with oodles of background information. The authors also provide you with guidance on which tombs to visit if you have time constraints. For those of you who like to hear and see another point of view, consider reading 'Guide to the Valley of the Kings' by Alberto Siliotti. Alberto captures the bigger picture with a touch more visual emphasis on tomb layout and wall detail. Both of these books are excellent and I would find it difficult to choose one over the other and resulted in my obtaining both!
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No Egyptology bookshelf should be without it...
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Any book by Nicholas Reeves is worth reading, and a book by Nicholas Reeves on the Valley of the Kings is a treat indeed. This is a wonderfully-illustrated, updated and more accessible version of Reeves' hard-to-find, hard-to-read and hard-to-afford Valley of the Kings: Decline of a Royal Necropolis. In other words, it's the only book you'll ever need on the Valley of the Kings in general. This book fully delivers on it's titled promise of being complete - every aspect of the Valley and its tombs is covered, and if there's something missing here, I can't find it. Packed with maps, illustrations and photographs, this book is as much a joy to look at as it is to read. Nicholas Reeves has a real passion for the Valley of the Kings and had produced a brilliant and detailed work on its history, excavation, tombs and abandonment. Read it from cover to cover, use it as a (reliable) reference work, dip into it from time to time...however you use this book, you'll enjoy it. In my opinion this is one of the very best generally-available books on Ancient Egypt at the moment.
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