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A review by librariandest
The Curse of the Mummy: Uncovering Tutankhamun's Tomb (Scholastic Focus) by Candace Fleming
4.0
A bit slow to start, but once we get close to finding King Tut it gets exciting. Fleming intersperses the narrative with creepy stories about the supposed curse of Egyptian artifacts. As an adult, I didn't actually find these scary -- but if a young reader is at all open to occult Ouji Board-type stuff they might be a little freaked out. Of course, by the end of the book, it's clear that all the hype over curses was nonsense.
The thing that was super interesting to me, though not the focus of the book, was the succession of rulers/conquerers/colonizers in Egypt, from the Pharaohs to the Persians to the Greeks to the Romans to the Caliphates to the Ottomans to the French to the British and (finally!) back to the Egyptians. Fleming focuses on the tension between the British and the Egyptians over who the artifacts belong to (obviously they should belong to the Egyptians, but rich British men funded the excavation efforts expecting to make a profit).
Many photographs are included. It's so sad and telling that all of the British and French people are named and almost all of the Egyptian people are listed as "unnamed."
There are difficult questions in this book about what right modern people have to disturb ancient graves. Of course, we are curious about ancient civilizations. And some feel enough time has passed that we can excavate in the name of history and science. But Fleming asks why the Egyptologists seemed to feel no compunction about what they were doing. Maybe the legend of the curse came from the very real feeling that there ought to be consequences for disturbing burial grounds.
The thing that was super interesting to me, though not the focus of the book, was the succession of rulers/conquerers/colonizers in Egypt, from the Pharaohs to the Persians to the Greeks to the Romans to the Caliphates to the Ottomans to the French to the British and (finally!) back to the Egyptians. Fleming focuses on the tension between the British and the Egyptians over who the artifacts belong to (obviously they should belong to the Egyptians, but rich British men funded the excavation efforts expecting to make a profit).
Many photographs are included. It's so sad and telling that all of the British and French people are named and almost all of the Egyptian people are listed as "unnamed."
There are difficult questions in this book about what right modern people have to disturb ancient graves. Of course, we are curious about ancient civilizations. And some feel enough time has passed that we can excavate in the name of history and science. But Fleming asks why the Egyptologists seemed to feel no compunction about what they were doing. Maybe the legend of the curse came from the very real feeling that there ought to be consequences for disturbing burial grounds.