Pyramids and Progress
Sketches from Egypt

This highly illustrated 1900 work guides the visitor to the ancient Egyptian sites while noting changes to the modern state.

John Ward (Author), Archibald Henry Sayce (Introduction by)

9781108081986, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 21 May 2015

320 pages, 321 b/w illus. 1 map
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.47 kg

This highly illustrated 1900 work on Egypt old and new by John Ward (1832–1912) seeks to guide the visitor to the ancient sites while also remarking on the radical changes to the economy and the development of the modern state since the intervention of the British government in 1883 and the appointment of Lord Cromer as consul-general and effective ruler. This blending of ancient and modern can be seen in discussions of Port Said ('not an Egyptian town at all') alongside the abandoned and silted-up delta ports of the Egyptians, Ptolemies and Ottomans. Thebes is discussed both as a city of the living and a city of the dead, and Ward notes approvingly the flattening of the ancient town of Assouan (Aswan), to form the foundations for new public buildings, on the orders of Lord Kitchener. Ward's subsequent book, Our Sudan (1905), is also reissued in this series.

Author's preface
Introduction
1. The doorways of Egypt
2. Cairo, the caravanserai of the world
3. The great pyramid-platform
4. The further pyramid-platform
5. The oasis of roses
6. The ancient city of Annu, or On
7. A reformer of ancient days
8. The tablet of Abydos
9. The last Egyptian princess
10. The city of the living
11. The city of the dead
12. A voyage on the Nile in a felucca
13. The doomed island of Philae
14. Assouan under Lord Kitchener
15. A trip on the Nile through Nubia
16. Water for the thirsty land
Index.

Subject Areas: Egyptian archaeology / Egyptology [HDDG]