Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68012 in Books
• Published on: 1969-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 548 pages

Customer Reviews

interesting read
i have to keep reminding myself that this racist book was written over a century ago. i keep reading about the "half-savage" egyptians. the creators of civilization as savages can only be that old of a theory. it's pretty well accepted noww that they were brilliant, but at the time of the writting, they kept trying to give the credit for the achievements to the influence of aryans. there are several references to the religion of the egyptians as being "ridiculous" and hard for us to understand their pecularities.i can't believe that this kind of language was once acceptable for scholarly people to use as a legitimate method of describing a culture. describing the egyptians as "primative half-savages" because they came out of africa astonished me.
this was a good read once you get past the racism (if you can), but i can only give it 4 stars because of it. there is full trasliteration of the hieroglyphs, but very often the footnotes are in german, french, or equally untranslated hieroglyphs. i have to remember that this was writen for the scholar and not the lay reader. another reason for only 4 stars.

Please take all antique writings with a grain of salt.
Please take all antique writings with a grain of salt. I believe that one needs to view and interpret this book within the cultural milieu of 1900. I am not defending the ethnocentrism of that time or the occasional downright bigotry in this book. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Like it or not, all of Budge's works on Egyptology are vital historical records and treatises. He is the one turn of the century egyptologist who approaches the subject from a magical and mystical perspective. If you are looking for the most up-to-date information on Ancient Egypt, this book is not for you. But if you are looking for some books that capture the Magick of Egypt that influenced Hermetic traditions such as the Golden Dawn and A^A^, I think that this book along with its companion volume, as well as Egyptian Magic and The Egyptian Religion (both by Budge and available on Amazon), are four essential source documents.

Gods of the Egyptians
Published more than 100 years ago, it still appears to carry authority. Very detailed account of Egyptian deities. Needs concentrated reading; of interest to people with more than a passing interest in the topic. New edition. A second volume follows this.