An Enjoyable Pyramid Book by the Head of Egypt's Antiquities Service

Zahi Hawass, the head of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, has written an informative book, The Mountains of the Pharaoh's, on the pyramids of Giza. The book contains a great deal of interesting material on the pyramids, their associated temples and the kings who built these amazing monuments.

The book also devotes some space to the recent excavaion of the tombs and villages of the workers who did the actual work of building these huge monuments. Dr. Hawass describes their sleeping quarters and dining facilities, as well as some of the physical ailments they suffered from as a reult of their back breaking work.

This book is well written and easy to read. It contains plenty of interesting and useful information. It is written for a lay audience and is not a ponderous "scholarly" work at all. My only criticism is of the pictures in the book. The color photos are not well reproduced (the colors are off)and are pretty much the same photos we have seen in any of dozens of other pyramid books. In spite of this criticism, I still would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Great Pyramids.