A History of Ancient Egypt: From. the First Farmers to the Great Pyramid.

• Author: Jones, Jana
• Position: Book review

A History of Ancient Egypt: From the First Farmers to the Great Pyramid. By JOHN ROMER. London: ALLEN LANE, 2012. Pp. xxvii + 476, illus. [pounds sterling]25.

John Romer's latest offering, an expansive overview of ancient Egypt from the beginnings of agriculture in the Neolithic period to the reign of Khufu, has already received effusive reviews from mainstream commentators. However, among other criticisms, Aidan Dodson in "Bookshelf," Egyptian Archaeology 41 (Autumn 2012): 41, points to Romer's disparagement of Alan Gardiner's Egypt of the Pharaohs (1961) as an example of the outmoded approach to Egyptology by the "traditional historians" from whom Romer is at pains to distance himself. Romer censures Gardiner for beginning his history at the Early Dynastic period, but ignores that "history" needs written sources that prehistory lacks. His stated intention is to begin a history "from nothing," providing a vision of ancient Egypt from the perspective of how the inhabitants of early farming communities viewed their world (always a hazardous undertaking!) and transformed themselves into citizens of the first nation state.

The book is the first of a proposed two volumes, and is divided chronologically into five parts. In part 1 (5000-3000 B.C.) Romer examines the evolution of hunter-gatherers to farmers on the shores of Lake Fayum and discusses the archaeological evidence from Neolithic Merimda, el-Omari, and Badari and the Buto-Maadi culture. Technological advances, specialization, foreign connections and influence in the Naqada period are considered in the context of increasing social change. Cases of so-called "brutal execution" and "human butchery" in the cemeteries at Hierakonpolis are attributed to the "extraordinary stress" that resulted from the transformation of a simpler, earlier culture.

In this first section particularly the reviewer finds reasons to criticize the quality and character of Romer's research, arising from her own research interests in textiles and early Egyptian funerary archaeology. Whilst castigating Egyptologists for "narratives founded in nineteenth century theories" and purporting to write from the discoveries of the last few decades, Romer draws unquestioningly on early sources and freely manipulates current research.

The histrionic account of ritual murder and human sacrifice in the non-elite cemetery HK43 at Hierakonpolis makes good reading, but is not fully supported by the evidence. Blunt-force head injuries...