Egypt and First Civilizations

Tower of Babel/Sumerian Ziggurat

Suggested Readings

To find out more about everything there is to see in this section, including all content, books, Synopses, and photos, start by clicking on any book you choose. Then use the Next… links following each Synopsis to cycle through all the pages in this section of the site.

Sir Leonard Wooley, Excavations at Ur and Ur of the Chaldees, Cornell University Press, 1982 (with PRS Moorey). Beginning in 1922, the Oxford-educated Wooley led important archeological excavations at Ur sponsored by the British Museum and University of Pennsylvania that unearthed an unprecedented treasure–trove of ancient Sumerian artifacts and cuneiform tablets. In 1929, he published Excavations at Ur, his first account of what …More

Diane Wolkenstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer, Harper & Row, New York, 1983. Samuel Noah Kramer was a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the most distinguished “Sumeroligists” and  archeologists of his generation. Diane Wolkenstein is a professional folklorist and story-teller. They collaborated closely on this book to bring these ancient Sumerian verses and tales to life …More

Peter Tompkins, Secrets of the Great Pyramid, HarperCollins, 1978. 

John DeSalvo, Decoding the Pyramids: Exploring the World’s Most Enigmatic Structures, Metro Books, New York, 2008.

Great Pyramid

Eric Von Daniken, Chariots of the Gods, Berkley Books, New York, 1970/1999. This is the classic but still controversial work that launched a revolution in how human pre-history is perceived, at least by some. Chariots of the Gods and its several successors made Von Daniken a top best-selling author and celebrity. In 1970, he was among the first to explore the possibility that many of the “gods” encountered in myths …More

Graham Hancock, Magicians of the Gods, Griffin, 2017. Graham Hancock has made a career of visiting and exploring remarkable ancient sites around the world and recounting theses experiences in engaging first-hand detail. He opens Magicians of the Gods with a description of his time at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey near the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates that flow from there down into Mesopotamia. The hundreds of towering megalithic pillars at Gobekli Tepe …More

Charles H. Hapgood, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age, Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton, IL 1966/1996.

Jeremy Naydler, Temple of the Cosmos: The Ancient Egyptian Experience of the Sacred, Inner Traditions, Rochester, VT, 1996. “In ancient times,” Naydler writes, “space was experienced not simply as the condition of outwardness…but also as containing varying degrees of internality.” There were, “vast and important regions of the cosmos that existed entirely inwardly and from which the external world derived.” It was, Naylor adds, “this experience of a non- subjective inner dimension to the world …More

Jeremy Naydler, The Future of the Ancient World: Essays on the History of Consciousness, Inner Traditions, Rochester, VT, 2009.

Christopher Dunn, The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt, Bear & Co., Santa Fe, NM, 1998. Despite having been created at least 4,500 or more years ago, the Great Pyramid at Giza, Christopher Dunn reminds us, is the “largest, most precisely built, and most accurately aligned building ever constructed in the world”. It has, Dunn adds, “no parallel in modern times.” Dunn is a professional engineer and craftsman with thirty-five …More

Christopher Dunn, Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt:  Advanced Engineering in the Temples of the Pharaohs, Bear & Co., Santa Fe, NM, 2010.

David Hatcher Childress, Technology of the Gods: The Incredible Sciences of the Ancients, Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton, IL, 2000.

Lawrence Gardner, Lost Secrets of the Sacred Ark: Amazing Revelations of the Incredible Power of Gold, Element, London, 2003.

Andrew Collins, Gods of Eden: Egypt’s Lost Legacy & the Genesis of Civilization, Headline Books, London, 1998.

Next Section: Greece