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(More customer reviews)This book attempts to reconstruct the ancient mind set of the Egyptians, in so far as possible, and relate it to our own. Assmann writes "ancient Egypt is an intellectual and spiritual world that is linked to our own by numerous strands of tradition." He discusses, for example, the influences of works such as "The Admonitions of Ipuwer" [13th cent.BC]on Bertold Brecht who used parts of it in his play "The Caucasian Chalk Circle". He explains the most important Egyptian philosophical concept "ma'at" or "connective justice" (illustrated in "The Eloquent Peasant" a Middle Kingdom work but holding "for Egyptian civilization in general" in terms of the ideas of both Karl Marx and Nietzsche.
Most importantly he shows what the Egyptian state really stood for as opposed to the false images found in Old Testament propaganda that mispresents Eqypt as an oppressive slave state. "The Egyptian state." he says, "is the implementation of a legal order that precludes the natural supremacy of the strong and opens up prospects for the weak (the 'widows' and 'orphans') that otherwise would not exist."
Unlike many who think that the revolution initiated by Akhenaten perished with him, Assmann presents evidence that its main principles survived in other religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) as well in secular venues from Greek philosophy "to the universalist formulas of oun own age as embodied in the physics of Einstein and Heisenberg."
It is possible that many of the ideas of "Christianity" were originally formulated by the Egyptians.
Today we know more about the Ancient Egyptians than ever before so we should "attempt to enter into a dialogue with the newly readable messages of ancient Egyptian culture and thus to reestablish them as an integral part of our cultural memory."
I have only skimmed the surface of this important book. Anyone who wants to understand ancient Egypt must read this book."
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