Tamara Bower

Archaeological illustrator Tamara Bower, who has worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, as well as on archaeological digs around the world, returns to the world of picture-books in this third contribution to the form. Her two earlier titles - The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with Hieroglyphs and How the Amazon Queen Fought the Prince of Egypt - were children's retellings of ancient Egyptian stories, found originally in papyrus form. Here however, we have an exploration of the topic of mummification, with an underlying story that is factual - the mummification of an Egyptian nobleman named Yuya, the father-in-law of Pharaoh Amenhotep III - and a framing device, in the form of the embalmer and his son, that is fictional. A great deal of information about the embalming process is communicated in the detailed text, and even more is provided in the back matter, which discusses how the tomb of Yuya was discovered...

The Mummy Makers of Egypt was a fascinating book, both educational and engrossing. I was familiar with the broad outlines of the process explored here - the drying of the body, the removal of organs, etc. - but many of the details were completely new to me. It is astonishing to think that these mummified bodies endured for so many millennia! One wonders how the process evolved, given the taboos against cutting into bodies - was it trial and error? In any case, the embalmers who worked on Yuya and his wife Thuya definitely created something to last. Although I did find this immensely interesting, and imagine many ancient Egypt-obsessed youngsters will as well, I don't know that it made as much of an impact upon me, as the author's other two books. Perhaps this was owing to the fact that some of the material here was already known to me, whereas those earlier titles were complete revelations? Or perhaps I simply made a greater emotional connection to those other books because they contained fictional narratives. Whatever the case may be, this was still an outstanding title, one I would recommend to children interested in ancient Egypt and/or mummies. It is very text-heavy for a picture-book, so I'd say ages six or seven and up. As for myself, I hope that Tamara Bower will produce more books!… (mehr)

Five years after her debut picture-book, The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with Hieroglyphs, which presented a children's adaptation of an ancient Egyptian tale from the 19th century BCE, archaeological illustrator Tamara Bower returned to the form with this second marvelous offering. Taken from a longer cycle of Graeco-Roman stories known as "Egyptians and Amazons," which itself belongs to the Story-Cycle of King Petubast, the tale here concerns the battle between Queen Serpot of the Amazons, living and ruling a small kingdom near Assyria, and Prince Pedikhons of Egypt, who invaded her country. After a general battle, the two royals meet for personal combat, only to discover that they are equals, and that they have fallen in love with one another...

How the Amazon Queen Fought the Prince of Egypt is another distinct triumph from Tamara Bower! The story is engaging, and is one of the very few, outside of the author's other book, to present a genuine work of ancient Egyptian literature to children. It was written much later than the story in The Shipwrecked Sailor: An Egyptian Tale with Hieroglyphs, and is found in a scroll held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Unlike that earlier story, which was written in hieratic, this tale was originally written in the demotic script, which evolved from the hieratic. Like that earlier title, certain sentences throughout the book are translated into hieroglyphs, with a phonetic (as far as that is possible) and literal meaning included. The full, adult version of the story can be found in Miriam Lichtheim's Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume III: The Late Period, where it is known as Prince Pedikhons and Queen Serpot. The back matter here explores the history of the text, gives more information on hieroglyphs, describes all the Assyrian and Egyptian symbolism used in the illustrations, and gives a list of further reading ideas.

I enjoyed this immensely, and as with Bower's other book, finished it with a desire to read more Ancient Egyptian literature. I recently watched the entertaining (albeit highly speculative) television miniseries Tut, which follows the life of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, and have been thinking how unfortunate it is that there aren't more high-quality films set in ancient Egypt. I'd watch a miniseries based on either of Bower's books, in a heartbeat! Recommended to children fascinating by Ancient Egypt, and to anyone looking for unusual picture-books set in the ancient world.… (mehr)

Tamara Bower, an archaeological illustrator who trained at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, here presents a picture-book adaptation of the story of 'The Shipwrecked Sailor,' originally found in an Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic scroll from the 19th century BCE. Setting out on a voyage down the Red Sea, the sailor's ship sinks in a storm, and he himself washes up on the Island of the Soul. Here he is befriended by a massive serpent, the Prince of Punt, who aids him during the course of his four months on the island. Eventually he is rescued by another Egyptian ship, and carries home many rich gifts for Pharaoh...

The original full story of the shipwrecked sailor can be found both in Miriam Lichtheim's Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms, as well as John L. Foster's Ancient Egyptian Literature: An Anthology. Bower's presentation is engaging, pairing her retelling with illustrations done in an Egyptian style. Every other page or so, a phrase in hieroglyphs is shown, with a literal translation. The back matter includes a note about the story, an explanation of the symbolism embedded in the illustrations, a note about hieroglyphs, and a list of further reading. All in all, this was a lovely children's version of an ancient story, one not well known in the modern world. Reading it made me want to pick up a larger anthology of ancient Egyptian writing - perhaps one of the two mentioned above. It also made me aware of the dearth of good children's books on the subject. I see that Bower herself has penned two others - How the Amazon Queen Fought the Prince of Egypt and The Mummy Makers of Egypt - I will have to see about tracking those down as well.… (mehr)

This book tells the story of how Queen Serpot of the Amazons fought Prince Pedikhons of the Egyptians. The Amazons were a society of women who ruled over themselves without any men. When an army from Egypt enters the Amazons' territory, Ashteshyt, the sister of the Amazonian queen, disguises herself as a man to sneak into the Egyptian army's base. She reports back to sister, Serpot, who then leads her army in an attack against the Egyptians. The Amazons win, and Prince Pedikhons is enraged. He challenges Serpot to a battle between just the two of them, and she accepts. The two fight from morning to sunset, where Pedikhons puts down his weapons and declares his respect for Serpot. The two then fall in love and conquer India. At the time, I'm sure that women in Egypt were expected to be subservient to men, which is why Pedikhons believed no woman could ever beat his army. Several times throughout the book, Pedikhons remarks on how women and men aren't equal, but when he and Serpot finally fight, he sees that they are equally matched in strength. Serpot defies what Pedikhons- and most other men at the time- thought a woman should be like. Despite how much I love powerful women in literature, this story managed to bore me. The story is written almost like a history textbook, even though its telling a fictional story inspired by Greek and Egyptian mythology- both of which I love, so I expected to like this book. I find myself wishing I liked this book, but in all honesty, its just too boring.… (mehr)