Archaeology and Geology of Ancient Egyptian Stones
eBook - PDF

Archaeology and Geology of Ancient Egyptian Stones

  1. 1,098 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Archaeology and Geology of Ancient Egyptian Stones

About this book

The ancient Egyptian Civilization dominated the northeast corner of Africa—including modern-day Egypt and, at times, northern Sudan—from about 3000 BC at the beginning of the Dynastic period to AD 642 at the end of the Roman period. Most of what it left behind consists of stones of many kinds. There were building stones for temples, pyramids, mastaba tombs, and other monumental constructions; and utilitarian stones for tools, weapons, and a wide array of mundane applications, including the raw materials for faience, glass, medicines, paint pigments, and pottery. There were also ornamental stones for decorative and structural elements in buildings, obelisks, statues, sarcophagi, stelae, vessels, shrines, offering tables, mace heads, cosmetic palettes, and other sculpted objects; and gemstones for jewellery, amulets, seals, and other small decorative items. Still more stones were processed to extract their metals, including gold, copper, iron, and lead.


Two persistent problems in Egyptology have been the geological identification of these stones, and the recognition of their sources. Archaeology and Geology of Ancient Egyptian Stones seeks to identify and describe all the rocks and minerals employed by the ancient Egyptians using proper geological nomenclature, and to give an account of their sources in so far as they are known. A secondary objective is to describe the multitudinous uses of the stones as well as the technologies employed to extract, transport, carve, and thermally treat them.

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Yes, you can access Archaeology and Geology of Ancient Egyptian Stones by James A. Harrell in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Geology & Earth Sciences. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright page
  4. On Writing a Reference Work
  5. Contents Page
  6. List of Figures and Tables
  7. Preface
  8. Chapter 1 Introduction
  9. Part I. Archaeological and Geological Background
  10. Part II. Building Stones
  11. Part III. Utilitarian Stones
  12. Part IV. Ornamental Stones
  13. Part V. Gemstones
  14. Part VI. Metals
  15. Epilogue (and a Poem)
  16. Bibliography
  17. Index