Contrary to the popular view that they were a people obsessed with religion and death, the ancient Egyptians were in fact very much concerned with the enjoyment of life--so much so that they desired their civilized, often exuberant existence to be continued for ever in the afterlife. Thus they equipped their tombs with all the trappings of life on earth and decorated the walls with colorful scenes depicting their many activities, pleasures and pastimes. With the aid of a wealth of illustrations from the British Museum's rich Egyptian collections, Miriam Stead combines the evidence from the tombs with that of excavation and written sources to recreate a remarkably vivid and wide-ranging picture of life in ancient Egypt.