Old books sometimes contain very interesting material. For instance, I checked out Egypt Observed by Henri Gougaud.

Of course, it's obvious that many of the structures built by the ancient Egyptians were incredibly beautiful when first built, and they retain much of their original beauty. But here are the kinds of things I also noticed. First of all, the temple of Djoser was built of six steps in six stages. If I do the math, that means every stage yielded a step. Why does this cause my neurons to go on the fritz? They should never have told me that.

I wonder about how you say that name, D-j-o-s-e-r? Surely, the Egyptians weren't any better at saying two hard consonants together at the beginning of a word such as Djoser than I am. Can you imagine how relieved I was to learn the pronunciation is Zoser? Another question, though: In the discussion of the Pyramid of Djoser, it states that "deep crypts were hollowed out of living rock" (51). Living rock is different from dead rock? I'm still working on this one, since I haven't figured out how there could be rock that continues to increase its mass in the middle of the desert sand.

The name Ptahhotp is another matter. It seems to require extreme dexterity of consonant pronunciation. 

Have you noticed how important a new baby's name is? Baby books gave lists of popular baby names and a brief description of its origin, but now you need to read pages and pages of history about the name and do some numerology to determine if the name is a good one. Otherwise, your offspring may doubt you for giving them a less than auspicious name.

In Egypt, the Apis bull was worshipped, embalmed, and put in sarcophagi that sometimes weighed sixty tons. Apis worship was adopted by the Greeks and Romans at a later date. "Special spots" on the white hide of cattle drawings indicated a bull. (53). The sacred bulls spent their lives in bliss amidst a "harem of cows".

The most surprising thing in the book was the description of the village of Siwa:

"Custom ordains that the sexes be rigorously separated from the age of puberty. The women live as recluses, and at night the men leave the village. Until quite recently, marriages between boys were recognized in civil law- everything was, and still is, ordered so that children should not proliferate...for they could not feed too large a population" (106).

Time goes by, and the more things change, the more they stay the same.