John Hoyer Updike (1932 – 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic.

Read by David Williamson.
Nevada.

I am Dying, Egypt, Dying. 

Long sources of mystery, imagination, and inspiration, the myths and history of the ancient Mediterranean have given rise to artistic, religious, cultural, and intellectual traditions that span the centuries. In this unique and comprehensive introduction to the region's three major civilizations, Egypt, Greece, and Rome draws a fascinating picture of the deep links between the cultures across the Mediterranean and explores the ways in which these civilizations continue to be influential to this day.

For many people ancient Egypt is a baffling phenomenon. Certainly it is impressive, with its mighty monuments, its three thousand years of history, and its reputation for vast learning and skill. On the other hand, a culture of now deserted monuments, of aloof statues, of a flat and static art and of gaping mummies never seems to pulse with good red blood. We feel no kinship to the austere King Khafre in the Cairo Museum or to Queen Hatshepsut masquerading as Osiris in the Metropolitan Museum. The story of ancient Egypt seems more like a fable than like human history.

Few past societies can have exerted a broader or stronger cultural attraction in recent times than that of the Nile Valley. This book explores some of the ways in which that appeal has been translated, at the level of modern nation states as well as that of the individual, into expressions of a collective awareness that take Ancient Egypt, and above all pharaonic Egypt, as a model. It looks not only at the effect of European colonialist mentalities on the way that pharaonic society was explored, portrayed, purveyed and exploited, but also at the adoption of Egypt as a resonant image and a paradigm for more far-flung empires, notably in the New World.

Important historical and cultural figures as well as some well-known individuals in Egypt's long history (c 3100 BC - c AD 600) are incorporated in this work of reference. Rulers and members of their families, significant figures and important foreigners with whom the Egyptians came into contact are all included. The entries are based on original source material and there are bibliographies for each entry.