THE CULT OF THE IMMORTAL: Mummies and the Ancient Egyptian Way of Death.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE/NFINE.No owner inscrptn,but price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,clean,glossy laminated,colour photographic upper wrap, publisher's b/w advert to rear wrap; with minimal shelf-wear and negligible creasing to edges - a miniscule nick to foot of spine/backstrip with minimal bumping/creasing - miniscule rubbing to two upper corners and the bottom,right-hand corner which is also lightly bumped/creased. Top+fore-edges bright,clean and unmarked; contents bright,tight and near pristine.Unblemished,plain brown paper-covered boards with bright, crisp,stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate plain white endpaperss.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,6-304pp includes half-title+title pages,b/w frntis map,contents+illustrations+plates lists,an introduction,10 chapters,46 b/w illus - includes maps - by the author,21 b/w photographic plates,chapter notes,a bibliography and an index. In millions of mummified corpses of kings and commoners,animals,birds and beetles,Ancient Egypt has left a unique heritage for subsequent civilizations.Inside the richly decorated mummy cases and under many layers of blackened bandages,the gaunt faces,their flesh drawn back over a perfectly preserved bone structure,continue to speak to us over three thousand years and more,as can no other relics of past history. Ange-Pierre Leca is a French medical specilaist who has made a study of the most recent research (then 1976) on the mummies - in France, the United States and Britain,as well as in Egypt itself.In 'The Cult of the Immortal' he describes the extraordinary range of insights into the ancient Egyptian way of life that the mummies have at last revealed. Scientific analysis has shown us what food the Egyptians ate,the state of their teeth,the diseases they suffered from,as well as details of the elaborate process of embalming.The discovery that ancient Egyptians suffered from heart disease,for instance,has encouraged modern doctors to look again at a condition they had seen as phenomenon of twentieth century Western man.'The Cult of the Immortal' affords us a unique glimpse into the life of a people of the remote past:into their belief in the continuity of life through death,which obsessed them with death but also with the joy of living;into their social organisation and health;into their feeling for the natural world,which led them to 'take with them' into the other world dogs and cats,ibises,monkeys and scarab beetles by the thousands.And we are not the first to be fascinated by the mystery of the mummies:throughout the centuries their tombs have been robbed,first for the treasures that surrounded them,then for the corpses themselves, to satisfy the mediaeval European demand for the medicinal properties believed to lie in powdered mummy flesh. . . . Egyptian mummies thus speak to us not only about themselves,but about the peculiarity of human history and human belief. In this absorbing book the people of Ancient Egypt are seen in a new and more intimate light, and their legacy for succeeding generations is placed in a context that embraces superstition, greed and the whole unchanging gamut of human frailties.Ange-Pierre Leca studied medicine in Paris and specialised in rheumatology.He has had a lifelong interest in the history of Ancient Egypt and has published two books on medicine in the time of the pharaohs.He is a frequent lecturer and broadcaster on matters relating to Ancient Egyptian health and culture. See also rja2163, rja2164 and rja2166 for similar title/topics. Please contact rpaxtonden@blueyonder.co.uk ,because of the weight/ value of this item,for correct,insured shipping P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!