Readers hear first-hand from King Tutankhamun how he became the ruler of ancient Egypt at the tender age of nine, and what it was like to be rudely awakened from the afterlife by British Egyptologist Howard Carter in 1922. They’ll endure him bragging about his collection of blingy 18-carat gold sandals, and wonder how to discern fake news from the truth surrounding Tut’s mysteriously premature death.

Naunton’s expert text is accompanied by Guilherme Karsten’s illustrations, giving the boy King a contemporary make-over for celebrity-obsessed readers, and letting children in on all the juicy details of an extraordinary life.

With 48 illustrations in colour

While it was always the scholars – the Egyptologists – who were in charge, they depended on architects, artists, engineers and photographers. Yet when we think of Petrie, we think of Sir William Matthew Flinders, not of his wife Hilda. Only through reading their diaries and letters has it come to be realized how important she and other partners were. Similarly the role played by Egyptian workers, digging on archaeological projects and maintaining relations with the local landowners, is only just coming to be appreciated.

Egyptologists’ Notebooks brings together the work – reproduced in its original form – of the many people who contributed to our understanding of ancient Egypt, offering a glimpse into a very different history of Egyptology. They evoke a rich sense of time and place, transporting us back to a great age of discovery.