This was an amazing find for me. I ran into it at my local used book store and thought it would be a unique way to look at the Ancient Egyptian language and culture, since I would be able to see both at the same time. We often talk about how language influences culture and the other way around, but we never really get to see how it all started.

Don't let the size of this book fool you, there is more information here than you would expect. Each of the 100 hieroglyphs is explored in a page or two, but that explanation is why the hieroglyph is as it is, which covers much of the culture of Egypt, from housing to phonetics.

My only quarrel is that some of the hieroglyphs are more in depth than others. It is explained how most researchers believe the word "land" is pronounced - "ta", but many words like "mud" have no pronunciation with them. It would have been an all-encompassing experience to have included that, but then this book wasn't really meant as a dictionary, but of a study in language and culture. ( )

This is great - taking 100 common hieroglyphs and using them to make a guide to how ancient Egyptians thought and acted in everyday life, and how they saw the world. ( )

Although this is a deceptively simple little book to thumb through, with a few pages on each of 100 ancient glyphs, the context for each sign adds amazing clarity to the ancient language. This can be a quick read, casually interesting for its glimpse into the ancient culture. But it is even better for lingering over to help understand why certain abstract signs were used to define words. Most introductions to Egyptian hieroglyphs flood the reader with many signs at a time for rote memorization. But read a sign a day as presented by Kemp, letting that glyph's nuances percolate into your repertoire of the ancient culture, and you will find yourself thinking like an ancient Egyptian.

I appreciate Kemp's nondogmatic presentation of current theories. Too many historians present deductions as facts, whereas he presents scholarly ideas while leaving the door open a crack.