What do you think?
Rate this book
The Private Lives of the Pharaohs
The Private Lives of the Pharaohs traces three major scientific investigations as they reconsider some of the oldest and most puzzling questions in who exactly built the Great Pyramid of Giza, how did they do it, and why? Why did the claustrophobic 18th Dynasty die out? Was it the result of incest and inherited disease? And who exactly was the boy-pharaoh Tutankhamen? DNA analysis and the re-examination of a nameless skeleton play their part in determining the sequence of events at the end of this turbulent era. The investigation allows us to draw remarkable conclusions concerning hidden aspects of life and health at the very end of the New Kingdom.
Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
189 people want to read
About the author
Joyce A. Tyldesley
34 books167 followersJoyce Tyldesley is a British archaeologist and Egyptologist, academic, writer and broadcaster.
Tyldesley was born in Bolton, Lancashire and attended Bolton School. In 1981, she earned a first-class honours degree in archaeology from Liverpool University, and a doctorate in Prehistoric Archaeology from Oxford in 1986. She is a Teaching Fellow at Manchester University where she is tutor and course organiser of the three-year distance learning (internet based) Certificate in Egyptology programme run from the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology.
She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology at Liverpool University, an ex-trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society, Chairperson of Bolton Archaeology and Egyptology Society, and a trustee of Chowbent Chapel.
In 2004 she established, with Steven Snape of Rutherford Press Limited, a publishing firm dedicated to publishing serious but accessible books on ancient Egypt while raising money for Egyptology field work. Donations from RPL have been made to Manchester Museum and the Egypt Exploration Society: currently all profits are donated to the ongoing fieldwork at Zawiyet umm el-Rakham.
She is married with two children to Egyptologist Steven Snape and lives in Lancashire.
Tyldesley was born in Bolton, Lancashire and attended Bolton School. In 1981, she earned a first-class honours degree in archaeology from Liverpool University, and a doctorate in Prehistoric Archaeology from Oxford in 1986. She is a Teaching Fellow at Manchester University where she is tutor and course organiser of the three-year distance learning (internet based) Certificate in Egyptology programme run from the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology.
She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology at Liverpool University, an ex-trustee of the Egypt Exploration Society, Chairperson of Bolton Archaeology and Egyptology Society, and a trustee of Chowbent Chapel.
In 2004 she established, with Steven Snape of Rutherford Press Limited, a publishing firm dedicated to publishing serious but accessible books on ancient Egypt while raising money for Egyptology field work. Donations from RPL have been made to Manchester Museum and the Egypt Exploration Society: currently all profits are donated to the ongoing fieldwork at Zawiyet umm el-Rakham.
She is married with two children to Egyptologist Steven Snape and lives in Lancashire.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 17, 2019
I expected the content to better match the title but maybe that’s what you get from a publishing outfit called “TV Books”
July 17, 2024
I have read since finishing this book, that is was the companion to a TV series - it feels like it is.
This is really a 3 subject book with the overall subject being Ancient Egypt. The first part covers the pyramids and ideas of how they were built and how the people building them lived.
The second part is about the age of Amarna and Tutankhamen. The final section is about a mummy going through a modern (at the time of writing which was in 2000) medical examination to see how an upper class, long lived woman lived and died.
This is a great way to get started on Egyptian history, beyond lists of famous pharaohs and what they built. It is light reading, a bit of detail without getting bogged down in jargo, but still informative. I have to try and find the series now to see how it compares for detail.
I would recommend this book to anyone after a bit more depth in their Egyptian research, but without reading an archeological textbook.
This is really a 3 subject book with the overall subject being Ancient Egypt. The first part covers the pyramids and ideas of how they were built and how the people building them lived.
The second part is about the age of Amarna and Tutankhamen. The final section is about a mummy going through a modern (at the time of writing which was in 2000) medical examination to see how an upper class, long lived woman lived and died.
This is a great way to get started on Egyptian history, beyond lists of famous pharaohs and what they built. It is light reading, a bit of detail without getting bogged down in jargo, but still informative. I have to try and find the series now to see how it compares for detail.
I would recommend this book to anyone after a bit more depth in their Egyptian research, but without reading an archeological textbook.
August 30, 2024
Solid. Nice pictures. Not watered down too much. Met expectations.
July 16, 2025
Very enjoyable, good introduction into some of Egypt's big topics about the pyramids, Tutankhamen and mumyfication
September 25, 2012
Joyce Tyldesley's Private Lives of the Pharaohs contains three case studies on Ancient Egypt. These deal with the most popular topics within Ancient Egypt: the mystery of the pyramids, the boy-king Tutankhamun, and mummies.
The book was published as a companion to a documentary series. I don't recall watching it, so I can't say whether the book is anyway more or less informative for those who did see it. Still, the fact I haven't watched it should be a point in the book's favour, yes?
I found the section on Arsu, the mummy that is "unwrapped" and studied using a variety of new technologies including CT scans and facial reconstruction, the most interesting and new to me. It's not often that we get to see an ordinary individual "up close" in this way.
The other case studies are a little less interesting. It's not because Tyldesley does a poor job representing them, or that the subject is totally boring. I just feel that I'm too familiar with their topics and there's not enough space for Tyldesley to really explore them. Sometimes, I felt that parts were just a reiteration of something I had already seen in a documentary or read in a book. Other times, Tyldesley would mention something that I wanted more detail on (e.g. the DNA tests on Thutmose III and the early DNA testing on the foetuses found in Tutankhamun's tomb), but it wasn't provided.
Still, if you don't know a lot about Ancient Egypt, you probably won't be bothered by that.
Tyldesley has produced another fascinating read and excellent resource on Ancient Egypt, but more knowledgeable readers might not find this as fulfilling as her other books.
The book was published as a companion to a documentary series. I don't recall watching it, so I can't say whether the book is anyway more or less informative for those who did see it. Still, the fact I haven't watched it should be a point in the book's favour, yes?
I found the section on Arsu, the mummy that is "unwrapped" and studied using a variety of new technologies including CT scans and facial reconstruction, the most interesting and new to me. It's not often that we get to see an ordinary individual "up close" in this way.
The other case studies are a little less interesting. It's not because Tyldesley does a poor job representing them, or that the subject is totally boring. I just feel that I'm too familiar with their topics and there's not enough space for Tyldesley to really explore them. Sometimes, I felt that parts were just a reiteration of something I had already seen in a documentary or read in a book. Other times, Tyldesley would mention something that I wanted more detail on (e.g. the DNA tests on Thutmose III and the early DNA testing on the foetuses found in Tutankhamun's tomb), but it wasn't provided.
Still, if you don't know a lot about Ancient Egypt, you probably won't be bothered by that.
Tyldesley has produced another fascinating read and excellent resource on Ancient Egypt, but more knowledgeable readers might not find this as fulfilling as her other books.
December 8, 2014
Eh, this was just okay. I think my biggest problem was that when I bought this book, I didn't realize it was published in 2000. The book is based on a television series about the lives of the pharaohs, and either I saw parts of it, or else I've seen more recent shows on the same subjects. There's a lot of good research being done right now at the intersection of archaeology with science and technology, and this book is just out of date. It focused on three "case studies": Case One looks at how they built the pyramids, which I'm sure I saw a special on the History Channel about. Case Two looks at mummies, especially 18th dynasty guys like Tut and Ahkhenaten, using DNA and new technology to see if they had genetic diseases (ie, evidence of inbreeding) and just to see how Tut was related to the preceding kings. I feel like a lot of this information was covered in the really good Nefertiti documentary that was on a few years ago. Case Three (the most interesting one for me) examines the mummy of a female temple singer to see what her life was like. There's no evidence that she used any hallucinogenic drugs, but she had parasites and arthritis and abcesses in her teeth and all kinds of stuff, which shows that it was hard to be healthy even for the upper classes. Conclusion: interesting, but I could have just watched the Discovery channel for a while instead.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews