Fans pick 100 books like Curse Of The Pharaohs

By Zahi Hawass,

Here are 100 books that Curse Of The Pharaohs fans have personally recommended if you like Curse Of The Pharaohs. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Understanding Egyptian Myths

Chris Eboch Author Of The Eyes of Pharaoh

From my list on Ancient Egypt for middle school readers.

Why am I passionate about this?

My family lived in an American camp in Saudi Arabia when I was young, and we traveled extensively. I’ve always loved ancient cultures, from our first international trip to Greece when I was six. The two months I spent in Mexico and Central America as a young adult inspired my first novel for young people, The Well of Sacrifice. But Egypt has long held a special place in my heart. The mummies and pyramids grab a child’s attention. The fact that these people were so different from us – and yet so similar in other ways – keeps that fascination going. Stories about ancient Egypt never get old!

Chris' book list on Ancient Egypt for middle school readers

Chris Eboch Why did Chris love this book?

This book shares some myths from ancient Egypt in story form, along with background information to help them make sense.

Readers may be surprised to find an ancient Egyptian version of Cinderella, as well as the classic fable of “The Lion and the Mouse.” The book is fun on its own and could also be used in the classroom for lessons comparing folktales.

By Sheri Doyle,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Understanding Egyptian Myths as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this colorful book, students will learn about the roles and relationships of the heroes and gods in ancient Egyptian myths and legends. Several ancient Egyptians myths are retold, describing how these stories helped ancient people interpret their world. Myths include: - The journey of the Sun god - The secret name of Ra - The Murder of Osiris, and more!


Book cover of Spend the Day in Ancient Egypt: Projects and Activities That Bring the Past to Life

Chris Eboch Author Of The Eyes of Pharaoh

From my list on Ancient Egypt for middle school readers.

Why am I passionate about this?

My family lived in an American camp in Saudi Arabia when I was young, and we traveled extensively. I’ve always loved ancient cultures, from our first international trip to Greece when I was six. The two months I spent in Mexico and Central America as a young adult inspired my first novel for young people, The Well of Sacrifice. But Egypt has long held a special place in my heart. The mummies and pyramids grab a child’s attention. The fact that these people were so different from us – and yet so similar in other ways – keeps that fascination going. Stories about ancient Egypt never get old!

Chris' book list on Ancient Egypt for middle school readers

Chris Eboch Why did Chris love this book?

Kids will have great fun diving into these projects, including games, jewelry, masks, clothing, statues, and recipes.

Most projects have simple and inexpensive materials, making them suitable for classroom projects as well. Put aside the book learning for a while and have fun with food, crafts, and games! There’s nothing like eating something from an ancient culture to help us understand that these were real people.

By Linda Honan, Ellen Kosmer (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Spend the Day in Ancient Egypt as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Royal jubilees, towering pyramids, face painting, and jewelry making? The sky's the limit when you spend the day in ancient Egypt! Picture this: You get out of bed and, as you go to brush your teeth, you suddenly realize that you've traveled back in time over 4,500 years to ancient Egypt. The sun is shining, the Nile River is almost flooding, and everywhere you look, humongous pyramids are being erected. You have a strong hunch that it's going to be a truly amazing day. You'll spend the day with a family in the land of Giza during the Fourth Dynasty…


Book cover of Your Travel Guide to Ancient Egypt

Chris Eboch Author Of The Eyes of Pharaoh

From my list on Ancient Egypt for middle school readers.

Why am I passionate about this?

My family lived in an American camp in Saudi Arabia when I was young, and we traveled extensively. I’ve always loved ancient cultures, from our first international trip to Greece when I was six. The two months I spent in Mexico and Central America as a young adult inspired my first novel for young people, The Well of Sacrifice. But Egypt has long held a special place in my heart. The mummies and pyramids grab a child’s attention. The fact that these people were so different from us – and yet so similar in other ways – keeps that fascination going. Stories about ancient Egypt never get old!

Chris' book list on Ancient Egypt for middle school readers

Chris Eboch Why did Chris love this book?

This fun overview of life in ancient Egypt is written as a guidebook for the history traveler. This helps bring the past to life for kids on a more personal level.

The book combines all of ancient Egypt, which is hardly accurate, but it’s for children, not scholars. Teachers or homeschooling parents could have a lot of fun taking kids on an imaginary trip to the past.

By Nancy Day,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Your Travel Guide to Ancient Egypt as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

Takes readers on a journey back in time in order to experience life in ancient Egypt, describing clothing, accommodations, foods, local customs, transportation, a few notable personalities, and more.


Book cover of How Would You Survive As an Ancient Egyptian?

Chris Eboch Author Of The Eyes of Pharaoh

From my list on Ancient Egypt for middle school readers.

Why am I passionate about this?

My family lived in an American camp in Saudi Arabia when I was young, and we traveled extensively. I’ve always loved ancient cultures, from our first international trip to Greece when I was six. The two months I spent in Mexico and Central America as a young adult inspired my first novel for young people, The Well of Sacrifice. But Egypt has long held a special place in my heart. The mummies and pyramids grab a child’s attention. The fact that these people were so different from us – and yet so similar in other ways – keeps that fascination going. Stories about ancient Egypt never get old!

Chris' book list on Ancient Egypt for middle school readers

Chris Eboch Why did Chris love this book?

This one is perfect for kids who like to collect facts but don’t like big blocks of text.

Information is broken up into tiny bites. Each double-page spread has a topic, such as In the Workshop, Women in Society, or Entertainment. Each spread has a short overview and dozens of small illustrations with additional information. 

By Jacqueline Morley, John James (illustrator), David Salariya (illustrator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How Would You Survive As an Ancient Egyptian? as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 10, 11, 12, and 13.

What is this book about?

By reading this book, the reader is transported down a "time tunnel" to the period of the book, asked to choose an identity and given information on all aspects of life in that time in an original, interactive way. A rating is given to establish whether the reader would really have survived. A colour poster is also included inside the jacket.


Book cover of Divine Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt

Tamara Bower Author Of The Mummy Makers of Egypt

From my list on Ancient Egypt by an archaeological illustrator.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been fascinated by ancient Egypt since I was a child and dressed up to play as ancient Egyptian with her friends. I studied fine art in college, and was trained in archaeological illustration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where I worked as a staff illustrator in the Department of Egyptian Art. I later worked in the Department of Egyptian Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. I have worked as the technical illustrator for a dozen archaeological digs in Egypt, Turkey, Spain, Belize, and California. 

Tamara's book list on Ancient Egypt by an archaeological illustrator

Tamara Bower Why did Tamara love this book?

Egyptologist Salina Ikram is the foremost expert on Egyptian animal mummies. She has performed mummification on numerous animals in order to better understand the ancient Egyptian process of mummification. This book is by a number of egyptologists. It is academic, but not difficult to understand. It gives information on different animals that were mummified, and the context in which they were discovered.

By Salima Ikram (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Divine Creatures as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The invention of mummification enabled the ancient Egyptians to preserve the bodies not only of humans but also of animals, so that they could live forever. Mummified animals are of four different types: food offerings, pets, sacred animals, and votive offerings. For the first time, a series of studies on the different types of animal mummies, the methods of mummification, and the animal cemeteries located at sites throughout Egypt are drawn together in a definitive volume on ancient Egyptian animal mummies. Studies of these animals provide information not only about the fauna of the country, and indirectly, its climate, but…


Book cover of Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

Catherine Butzen Author Of Painter of the Dead

From my list on explaining why people think mummies are cursed.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by ancient Egypt – a remote era of history, but so well preserved! I love reading the old documents and finding out what they ate or why the worker Tilamentu was absent from the building site one day. (Turns out he had a fight with his wife). Pop culture likes to focus on the mummies, especially the cursed kind, and I couldn’t help wondering why. Where did those ideas come from? Did the Egyptians actually believe in curses? And what would someone like Tilamentu Q. Public think of it all? I hope you enjoy learning about it as much as I did!

Catherine's book list on explaining why people think mummies are cursed

Catherine Butzen Why did Catherine love this book?

When my father and I were getting ready to visit Egypt for the first time, he asked me for a book to introduce him to Egyptology. I gave him Red Land, Black Land. It brings you right into the distant yet familiar world of ancient Egypt: we see families fighting in letters, bored kids falling asleep in school, and scribes gloating over how amazing they are compared to everyone else. The past can seem so strange, but this book brings it to life.

By Barbara Mertz,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Red Land, Black Land as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A fascinating, erudite, and witty glimpse of the human side of ancient Egypt—this acclaimed classic work is now revised and updated for a new generation

Displaying the unparalleled descriptive power, unerring eye for fascinating detail, keen insight, and trenchant wit that have made the novels she writes (as Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels) perennial New York Times bestsellers, internationally renowned Egyptologist Barbara Mertz brings a long-buried civilization to vivid life. In Red Land, Black Land, she transports us back thousands of years and immerses us in the sights, aromas, and sounds of day-to-day living in the legendary desert realm that…


Book cover of Crocodile on the Sandbank

Kathleen Marple Kalb Author Of A Fatal Finale

From my list on brilliant women sleuths who catch killers.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been reading mysteries since I “borrowed” my Grandpa’s Miss Marple’s as an elementary schooler. (And yes, my maiden name really IS Marple) And I’ve always been drawn to smart, competent women characters–even better if they’re funny. Women who do their own fighting and their own detecting and then hand the killer off to the cops with a smile and a great line. These women inspired me–and now I get to write a lady who at least belongs in the room with them!

Kathleen's book list on brilliant women sleuths who catch killers

Kathleen Marple Kalb Why did Kathleen love this book?

This book made me love historical mysteries. I absolutely adore the main character, Amelia Peabody, who lives in Victorian times but is very much NOT a Victorian woman: smarter and tougher than the guys and not afraid to own it. Like Amelia, Ancient Egypt has always fascinated me, and I love a good adventure.

The only thing I enjoy more is a will-they-or-won’t-why with whip-smart banter, and Amelia and Emerson deliver there, too. They drew me in immediately, with plenty of historical background, a twisty plot that kept me guessing until the end, and a great romantic payoff, too. I think the Peabody and Emerson books are the best historical mystery series ever. Fight me. 

By Elizabeth Peters,

Why should I read it?

13 authors picked Crocodile on the Sandbank as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Amelia Peabody is Elizabeth Peters' most brilliant and best-loved creation, a thoroughly Victorian feminist who takes the stuffy world of archaeology by storm with her shocking men's pants and no-nonsense attitude!

In this first adventure, our headstrong heroine decides to use her substantial inheritance to see the world. On her travels, she rescues a gentlewoman in distress - Evelyn Barton-Forbes - and the two become friends. The two companions continue to Egypt where they face mysteries, mummies and the redoubtable Radcliffe Emerson, an outspoken archaeologist, who doesn't need women to help him solve mysteries -- at least that's what he…


Book cover of The Mummy's Foot

Angela Stienne Author Of Mummified: The Stories Behind Egyptian Mummies in Museums

From my list on why there’s an Egyptian mummy in your back garden.

Why am I passionate about this?

When at 13, I declared that I’d become an Egyptologist, quite a lot of people thought it would pass. Fast forward 10 years, and I was starting a PhD on Egyptian mummies in museums – it did not pass. I journeyed from the Louvre where I was a gallery attendant trying to uncover the story of bodies buried in their garden, to England where I relocated with little English to pursue an Egyptology degree… and then two more! The ethics of human remains in museums is a complex topic: that’s why I like to make it more approachable to the public, from running my project Mummy Stories, to giving talks in pubs! 

Angela's book list on why there’s an Egyptian mummy in your back garden

Angela Stienne Why did Angela love this book?

This short story involves a Frenchman, an antique store, a mummified foot, and a little too much wine.

We understand mummified bodies better by placing them in context. The other books do that historically, but this one does something very well: it showcases the enduring obsession with Egyptian mummies coming to life, in a rather enthralling fiction story, by a French writer.

I like it especially because Gautier did see the foot in question in the collection of a man called Dominique Vivant Denon, who is central to French museums, and to Egyptology, and brought the foot from Napoleon’s expedition.

I imagine Denon and Gautier having a chat: the fine line between fantasy and reality, ever so paradigmatic of France’s attitude to foreign bodies collecting.

By Theophile Gautier,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Mummy's Foot as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.


Book cover of The Jewel of Seven Stars

Roy Lester Pond Author Of The Egyptian Mythology Murders

From my list on Egypt mysteries that satisfy ancient ache.

Why am I passionate about this?

My ache for the ancient is a disease. It’s probably safe to say that I am the creator of the world’s greatest range of Egypt-based fiction by a single author. My depth of knowledge comes from a lifetime spent studying ancient Egypt and Egyptian archaeology and making numerous research trips to Egypt. I am fascinated by the mystery of ancient Egypt and its potency and relevance to today’s world. I have written numerous series and stand-alone adventures. 

Roy's book list on Egypt mysteries that satisfy ancient ache

Roy Lester Pond Why did Roy love this book?

This book was required reading for me as an Egyptophile and mystery thriller writer. 

Ancient horror, an archaeological plot to revive the dead Queen Tera, a mummy with extra fingers. What’s not to love? It's an atmospheric genre I just can’t shake.

By Bram Stoker, Deborah Kevin (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Jewel of Seven Stars as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the author of Dracula comes one of the first mummy novels ever written.

An Egyptologist discovers a tomb at the exact moment his daughter is born.

In a house full of Egyptian antiquities—

A jeweled scarab, mummified cat, and severed hand …

Unexplained claw marks and comas …

A mysterious stranger’s wild tales of a hidden tomb and ancient warnings …

Of violent deaths to everyone who sought the jewel …

All linked to a forgotten queen’s 5,000-year quest for reincarnation …

Malcolm Ross, pulled by his adoration of Margaret Trelawny, finds himself embroiled in a centuries old story…


Book cover of The Mummy or Ramses the Damned

Roy Lester Pond Author Of The Egyptian Mythology Murders

From my list on Egypt mysteries that satisfy ancient ache.

Why am I passionate about this?

My ache for the ancient is a disease. It’s probably safe to say that I am the creator of the world’s greatest range of Egypt-based fiction by a single author. My depth of knowledge comes from a lifetime spent studying ancient Egypt and Egyptian archaeology and making numerous research trips to Egypt. I am fascinated by the mystery of ancient Egypt and its potency and relevance to today’s world. I have written numerous series and stand-alone adventures. 

Roy's book list on Egypt mysteries that satisfy ancient ache

Roy Lester Pond Why did Roy love this book?

I found this to be a surprisingly elegant and sensuous read for a novel about an ancient Egyptian mummy. Awakening in Edwardian London and consuming the elixir of life, the revivified Rameses is doomed to wander the earth without satisfying his unquenchable desires, pursuing a beautiful aristocrat while desperately longing for the ancient beauty, Cleopatra.

Echoes of She and an ancient, forbidden cycle of love made it irresistible to me.

 

By Anne Rice,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Mummy or Ramses the Damned as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Ramses the Great returns in this “darkly magical” (USA Today) novel from bestselling author Anne Rice

“The reader is held captive and, ultimately, seduced.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Ramses the Great lives!

But having drunk the elixer of live, he is now Ramses the Damned, doomed forever to wander the earth, desperate to quell hungers that can never be satisfied—for food, for wine, for women.

Reawakened in opulent Edwardian London, he becomes Dr. Ramsey, expert in Egyptology. He also becomes the close companion of voluptuous, adventurous Julie Stratford, heiress to a vast shipping fortune and the center…


Book cover of Understanding Egyptian Myths
Book cover of Spend the Day in Ancient Egypt: Projects and Activities That Bring the Past to Life
Book cover of Your Travel Guide to Ancient Egypt

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Interested in mummies, Egypt, and archaeological excavations?

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