Ceremonial Mask & More

Reviews

I bought this for my 5 yr old daughter. She is into anything eygt and loves everything in this kit. This kit is definetely kid friendly.

I gave this as a Xmas gift to my daughter who homeschools 2 boys. She had this on her wishlist so it was pretty easy for me to choose. She was very happy to receive it and was impressed. They are studying Ancient Eqypt now and she thought it would definitely be of benefit in teaching.

My child really enjoyed the whole set.The masks were so much fun and the reading was great!All the little stickers and stencils really enhanced her understanding of ancient Egyptian life with the coloring books that came with it.I purchased it for my 5 year old because she showed interest in ancient Egypt, and it really got her going, perfect for her age so that she had things to manipulate and use her imagination with. For someone who really is just getting started in learning about ancient Egypt I would say that this a great starter filled with fun and interesting things!

Reviews

This book was praised by several reviewers as giving a good picture of life in ancient Egypt, from which I can only deduce that the reviewers are as ignorant of ancient Egypt as the author himself. Many, many errors abound in this book: Queen Hatshepsut (called Hatusu in this book for God only knows what reason) thinks about the game of chess, unknown in ancient Egypt; scenes of battles with the Sea Peoples decorate walls, although the Sea Peoples were defeated in a later dynasty and were not a threat during the Eighteenth Dynasty in which this book is set; people have volumes of law books, instead of papyrus rolls or scrolls; when papyrus is mentioned, it is used interchangeably with parchment; Amerotke rides through town in a chariot (highly unlikely, as chariots were used for hunting and war, not transportation; horses were extremely expensive, and the mansions of the wealthy officials found at Amarna show no sign that horses were kept by the inhabitants); Amerotke's wife teaches her sons to read, though there is no evidence that even highly-born women were taught to read; the west bank, home of a thriving city populated in part--but by no means exclusively--by those who served the dead is portrayed as a sinister place rather than a vital city that had its own mayor, and presumably was much like any other Egyptian town; Amerotke passes through a Village of the Unclean as he goes to his home (a caste never mentioned in actual Egyptian texts; is this supposed to be Calcutta, Egypt?); embalming practices are misrepresented; a soldier who distinguished himself in battle wears a golden lotus, rather than the fly (insect) of valor with which pharaohs rewarded military men; etc. etc. etc. There is probably no good reason for the average reviewer to know much about ancient Egyptian culture and mores, but the same cannot be said for an author who chooses to set a book in Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt. If he really thought Egypt interesting enough for the setting of a mystery, why on earth didn't he bother to do even a minimal amount of research? Apparently ancient Egypt wasn't THAT interesting, or he might have read a book or two on it. Nothing about the setting evoked in this book seems authentic. Even the names of some of the major characters are bizarre: the ancient Egyptian language of this period (and later periods, even the latest stage, Coptic) had no hieroglyph for the sound /l/, yet at least three characters have names that contain this sound; when Egyptians wanted to convey the sound in foreign names (such as those of the much later Ptolemaic rulers such as Cleopatra) they used a hieroglyph that was a combination of the letters /r/ and /w/. And why the name Norfret for Amerotke's wife, rather than the perfectly good Egyptian name Nefret (or Nofret), which meant "beautiful"? But perhaps the book is well-enough written to make the casual reader gloss over these flaws? Well, no. The writing is equally inept, and reads as if the author hastily dictated the book into a tape recorder in order to get it down quickly, and then didn't bother to go back and clean up the occasional odd bit of punctuation, or the incomplete sentences, or the use of "growled" and "jibed" and other such unfelicitous words instead of "said" etc. But does it work as a mystery? Unfortunately it fails here as well. Despite the fact that high-ranking members of the royal inner circle are being murdered right and left, some apparently by being lured away from their homes, Amerotke accepts a mysterious summons at face value and travels by himself to the west bank and almost certain ambush by a sinister circle of black-robed assassins. Right. And ultimately the mystery seems to hinge on a religious heresy that foreshadows the Amarna period in which Akhnaton chose to jetison the traditional Egyptian gods in favor of the solar god Aton--a bizarre period unlike anything in Egyptian history before or after the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty. In order to justify this anachronism, Doherty in a "Historical Note" at the beginning of the book claims that Egyptian religion was undergoing a shift during the reign of Thutmosis II and his successor Hatshepsut. It was undergoing no such thing. Egyptian religious beliefs were at no time either/or; the various cities and nomes had their own traditional gods, which were not jetisoned in favor of national gods (except during the exceptional Amarna period) but which could become more prominent when a royal dynasty from a certain area chose to elevate their local god. Such happened with Amun, a Theban god, who rose to pre-eminence during the reign of the Eighteenth Dynasty Theban monarchs; he was often linked with the powerful god Ra or Re, who since the Old Kingdom had been worshiped by the court. If the reader is really interested in books with an ancient Egyptian setting, the excellent (but alas truncated) Lieutenant Bak series by Lauren Haney is strongly recommended. Ms. Haney has clearly done all of the research so obviously neglected by Mr. Doherty. The more modern series by Elizabeth Peters (the pen name of Barbara Mertz, who earned a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, set in Victorian Egypt (and England) and the delightful Mamur Zapt series by Michael Pearce, set in Egypt before and during World War I, are also recommended.

This is PC Doherty's mystery/detective series, with the lead character a judge, under Pharaoh Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh. ( He refers to her by another form of her name: Hatusu ). Judge Amerotke seeks to solve crimes with the usual group of helpers/ sidekicks. Not as good as Mr. Doherty's more serious books, but light and easy reading, especially if you like mysteries and detective novels. There are multiple books in this series, and I hope he continues to write more.

Paul Doherty is one of my favourite authors and I am always delighted to find one of his books that I have not read before. This one has been a change of direction for the author and he seems to have pulled it off, although for me personally it was not one of my favourites. The book is set in Ancient Egypt at the time of Pharaoh Tuthmosis II. The Pharaoh is returning to Thebes after successfully doing battle with the sea raiders in the Nile Delta. However there are factions who are less than happy to seem him return. Reunited with his wife and people Tuthmosis celebrates his homecoming, but within an hour he is dead. With the aid of Amerotke, a respected judge his wife Hatusu sets out to find the perpetrators of the crime and embarks on a path destined to reveal many secrets.

I am not an expert in the history of Egypt-ancient or modern -and so am not qualified to comment on the accuracy or otherwise of the historical background to this novel ,the first in an ancient Egyptian sequence by the prolific Mr Doherty .Others have indicated on these pages that they have some reservations on this point and I will defer to the greater level of expertise which they have.I will simply judge the book as a colourful period novel and judged on these ground it strikes me as perfectly competent.It is subtitled "A NOVEL OF INTRIGUE AND MURDER"and the batting order strikes me as significant .There are murders in the book and an investigation is carried out to determine the culprit or culprits but most time and space is taken up with the political ramifications of the deaths and the jockeying for position in the power vaccuum that results from the event which triggers the novel's event's namely the death of Pharoah Tutmosis the second in 1479 BC .The investigation and the revelation of the perpetrator is almost secondary to the political in fighting which results.The death of the Pharoah results in a power struggle between his widow ,the cunning Hatusu and two other potential rivals for the position of regent to the infant Pharoah Tutmosis 111 .Her chief rivals are the Grand Vixier and a prominent general and the country has to deal with a major incursion from a foreign power before the political conflict is resolved .The book's strengths are some vivid battle scenes and some atmospheric writing describing the architecture and ritual of ancient Egypt ;the scenes in the Necropolis are a reminder that its author has dabbled in the occult genre and are especially nicely done.Judged as a mystery it is routine and will not satisfy those who demand that whodunnit elements occupt centre stage but it a crisp piece of lively historical writing with enough incident and brio in the writing to keep the pages turning

You know you are reading a great book when you are torn between not wanting the story to end and reading it through the night to find out what will happen next.6 stars!

Reviews

I used this book to make the mask for my 6 year old who told me he wanted to be Anubis for Halloween after having learned about Egyptian Gods. This book was exactly what I needed. The masks involve alot of detailed work and are not something for young children to work on, but the end product was well worth the time, and the other masks in the book were great as teaching tools for other Egyptian gods.

I bought this for our daughter, thinking she would have fun making these masks as a "free time" activity. The masks are really cool looking. Unfortunately, they are WAY too hard for children to cut out and assemble. Frankly, they are almost too hard for me to put together. I wouldn't recommend this as a craft for homeschoolers. It's more like a classroom decoration.

I am a teacher and when I do my ancient Egypt lesson I use these masks to spark student interest and to decorate the room. The masks are easier to make than the villages or castles in this same series. The pieces are bigger. I found an xacto knife and tacky glue work the best!