2004-02-07 The best introduction to Ancient Egyptian myths

Simply, this is a near perfect retelling of the Egyptian myths for nine year-olds and upwards. Understanding the myths helps us to get inside the soul of ancient peoples. Without that, history books and popular archaeology leave us only as outsiders looking in.

Roger Lancellyn Green makes the right decision to tell the myths in their own space. He leads the reader from the Egyptian creation story naturally onwards through the betrayal by Set and the rise of Osiris. He introduces key ideas like 'Ka' and 'Ba' which are completely unlike anything in our Western culture with stories that illustrate and explain them.

Reading this at the age of nine, it never occurred to me that this was difficult stuff, or academic or esoteric. Tales of Ancient Egypt tells it so well that it just became part of what I knew.

I would recommend this book to any child who likes myths. But I would especially recommend that you take a copy of this book with you when you walk round the Egyptian section of any museum, and especially if you walk round the British Museum in London. Putting the stories together with how the ancient Egyptians lived, the things they made, and how they died will cement the people of the old Nile in your mind forever.