A definitive and thrilling new account of the last great dynasty of ancient Egypt, from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra.

When Alexander the Great arrived in Egypt, he overthrew the hated Persian overlords and was welcomed as a saviour. He repaid them by showing due reverence to their long-held traditions. After his death, as the Greek empire broke up and his closest advisers squabbled over the spoils, a Macedonian general named Ptolemy seized the Egyptian throne, ushering in a new dynasty that would last for 300 years.

What followed was as dramatic and compelling as any period in Egyptian history. The unique blend of Greek and Egyptian cultures led to an unprecedented flowering of learning, as the new city of Alexandria became home to the Great Library, the largest in the ancient world, that attracted the brightest minds. Wars, incest, double-dealing, foreign empires and huge wealth all followed, but the rise of the Roman empire would eventually bring the Ptolemaic era crashing to a close.

Helped by the latest archaeological discoveries and using original papyrus documents, Toby Wilkinson uncovers a story that can only now be fully told. From courtly life to the role of women, from international trade to the tensions between native Egyptians and incoming Greeks, all aspects of life are here. Filled with surprising insights, vivid descriptions and larger-than-life characters, and written in the author’s compelling narrative style, The Last Dynasty will appeal to all lovers of history, archaeology, art and culture.

“The author succeeds in bringing this distant age to life through telling detail and insightful analysis. . . . Whenever he can, the author takes advantage of opportunities to peer beneath the mask.”-The Economist

Ramesses II ruled the Nile Valley and the wider Egyptian empire from 1279 to 1213 B.C., one of the longest reigns in pharaonic history. He was a cultural innovator, a relentless self-promoter, and an astute diplomat-the peace treaty signed after the Battle of Kadesh was the first in recorded history. He outbuilt every other Egyptian pharaoh, leaving behind the temples of Abu Simbel; the great hypostyle hall of Karnak; the tomb for his wife Nefertari; and his own memorial, the Ramesseum.

His reputation eclipsed that of all other pharaohs as well: he was decried in the Bible as a despot, famed in literature as Ozymandias, and lauded by early antiquarians as the Younger Memnon. His rule coincided with the peak of ancient Egypt’s power and prosperity, the New Kingdom (1539-1069 B.C.).

In this authoritative biography, Toby Wilkinson considers Ramesses’ preoccupations and preferences, uncovering the methods and motivations of a megalomaniac ruler, with lessons for our own time.

When Alexander the Great arrived in Egypt, he overthrew the hated Persian overlords and was welcomed as a saviour. He repaid them by showing due reverence to their long-held traditions. After his death, as the Greek empire broke up and his closest advisers squabbled over the spoils, a Macedonian general named Ptolemy seized the Egyptian throne, ushering in a new dynasty that would last for 300 years.

What followed was as dramatic and compelling as any period in Egyptian history. The unique blend of Greek and Egyptian cultures led to an unprecedented flowering of learning, as the new city of Alexandria became home to the Great Library, the largest in the ancient world, that attracted the brightest minds. Wars, incest, double-dealing, foreign empires and huge wealth all followed, but the rise of the Roman empire would eventually bring the Ptolemaic era crashing to a close.

Helped by the latest archaeological discoveries and using original papyrus documents, Toby Wilkinson uncovers a story that can only now be fully told. From courtly life to the role of women, from international trade to the tensions between native Egyptians and incoming Greeks, all aspects of life are here. Filled with surprising insights, vivid descriptions and larger-than-life characters, and written in the author’s compelling narrative style, The Last Dynasty will appeal to all lovers of history, archaeology, art and culture.

On 26 November 1922 Howard Carter first peered into the newly opened tomb of an ancient Egyptian boy-king. When asked if he could see anything, he replied: ‘Yes, yes, wonderful things.’

In Tutankhamun’s Trumpet, acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson takes a unique approach to that tomb and its contents. Instead of concentrating on the oft-told story of the discovery, or speculating on the brief life and politically fractious reign of the boy king, Wilkinson takes the objects buried with him as the source material for a wide-ranging, detailed portrait of ancient Egypt – its geography, history, culture and legacy.

One hundred artefacts from the tomb, arranged in ten thematic groups, are allowed to speak again – not only for themselves, but as witnesses of the civilization that created them. Never before have the treasures of Tutankhamun been analysed and presented for what they can tell us about ancient Egyptian culture, its development, its remarkable flourishing, and its lasting impact.

Filled with surprising insights, unusual details, vivid descriptions and, above all, remarkable objects, Tutankhamun’s Trumpet will appeal to all lovers of history, archaeology, art and culture, as well as all those fascinated by the Egypt of the pharaohs.

‘I’ve read many books on ancient Egypt, but I’ve never felt closer to its people’ – The Sunday Times

On 26 November 1922 Howard Carter first peered into the newly opened tomb of an ancient Egyptian boy-king. When asked if he could see anything, he replied: ‘Yes, yes, wonderful things.’

In Tutankhamun’s Trumpet, acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson takes a unique approach to that tomb and its contents. Instead of concentrating on the oft-told story of the discovery, or speculating on the brief life and politically fractious reign of the boy king, Wilkinson takes the objects buried with him as the source material for a wide-ranging, detailed portrait of ancient Egypt – its geography, history, culture and legacy.

One hundred artefacts from the tomb, arranged in ten thematic groups, are allowed to speak again – not only for themselves, but as witnesses of the civilization that created them. Never before have the treasures of Tutankhamun been analysed and presented for what they can tell us about ancient Egyptian culture, its development, its remarkable flourishing, and its lasting impact.

Filled with surprising insights, unusual details, vivid descriptions and, above all, remarkable objects, Tutankhamun’s Trumpet will appeal to all lovers of history, archaeology, art and culture, as well as all those fascinated by the Egypt of the pharaohs.

‘I’ve read many books on ancient Egypt, but I’ve never felt closer to its people’ The Sunday Times

What could be more exciting, more exotic or more intrepid than digging in the sands of Egypt in the hope of discovering golden treasures from the age of the pharaohs?

Our fascination with ancient Egypt goes back to the ancient Greeks. But the heyday of Egyptology was undoubtedly the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This golden age of scholarship and adventure is neatly book-ended by two epoch-making events: Champollion’s decipherment of hieroglyphics in 1822 and the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon a hundred years later.

In A World Beneath the Sands, the acclaimed Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson tells the riveting stories of the men and women whose obsession with Egypt’s ancient civilisation drove them to uncover its secrets. Champollion, Carter and Carnarvon are here, but so too are their lesser-known contemporaries, such as the Prussian scholar Karl Richard Lepsius, the Frenchman Auguste Mariette and the British aristocrat Lucie Duff-Gordon. Their work – and those of others like them – helped to enrich and transform our understanding of the Nile Valley and its people, and left a lasting impression on Egypt, too. Travellers and treasure-hunters, ethnographers and epigraphers, antiquarians and archaeologists: whatever their motives, whatever their methods, all understood that in pursuing Egyptology they were part of a greater endeavour – to reveal a lost world, buried for centuries beneath the sands.

As the world’s first nation-state, the history of Ancient Egypt is above all the story of the attempt to unite a disparate realm and defend it against hostile forces from within and without. Combining grand narrative sweep with detailed knowledge of hieroglyphs and the iconography of power, Toby Wilkinson reveals Ancient Egypt in all its complexity.