Ancient Nubia: African Kingdoms on the Nile

This is a beautiful coffee table book full of wonderful photos, but also with many informative essays by the experts in the field.

Glorious publication. Much needed on the subject of Nubia, often missed.

Lovely book

A foreword from Zahi Hawass introduces this comprehensive exploration of Ancient Nubia, with contributions from Marjorie Fisher, Peter Lacovara, Salima Ikram, Robert Morkot and David O’Connor among others. Part One covers the history and culture of Nubia from the Paleolithic period (c. 1,000,000 BP) through to the Islamic Period (c. 1400 AD and beyond), including art and architecture, religion, burial customs and daily life. Part Two is an exploration of the main excavated sites, from Gebel Qeili and Naqa in the south to Elephantine and Aswan to the north. The book is illustrated with plenty of colour photographs, maps and drawings, each chapter has its own bibliography and there is a useful list of museums holding Nubian collections. This is an excellent introduction to an important and less well known culture: essential reading for both the serious student and general reader. Reviewed by ancientegyptmagazine dot com

I wish I could say this is simply a missed opportunity, I fear I must say it's a work of glaring incompetence. A site by site compendium of essays, sometimes written by those with no actual professional competence in the subject they cover. Many erratic and eccentric author choices for sites that are known to be covered by readily available academics who could have written informatively about places and finds they have personal expertise in and the editors can't not have known this (it will take little research to establish who should be writing about the sites, they tend to be those excavating and publishing on them). Several essays show marks of being table research and reveal mistakes that can only originate from the writer never having actually been to the site they describe. Thus we have an academically weak and lazy text supported by a variety of pretty pictures - in these times we deserve more and, importantly, who knows when a publisher will devote these resources to a major populist text on this subject? This could have been so much better, amazing that it isn't, and responsibility for the flaws must lay at the feet of the editors. Buyer beware, you're being sold a very sloppy piece of work.

El libro es de gran formato, bien ilustrado, y buena presentación. Lo mejor que tiene es el texto, redactado por especialistas de forma concisa pero ajustada a la realidad, relatando los hechos y lugares históricos de Nubia de manera comprensible y didáctica. Merece la pena adquirirlo.

Great book by many experts on ancient Nubia. Really helps bring alive a very mysterious culture that rival ancient Egypt (their empire was the largest of the ancient empires and included all of Egypt in the 25th dynasty). This book covers the time period from about 10,000 BCE to through the collapse of the Meroitic empire just before the Arab conquest of Byzantine Egypt. Charts and diagrams make everything clear along with amazing photographs of Sudan and Southern Egypt. Bought it for a course I was taking, but it is a must for anyone interested in ancient Egypt's rival in Africa.

Great book.

As others have pointed out, the photos are stunning and very helpful in understanding ancient Nubia. The book also is scholarly yet accessible. I just love it. There's enough depth to help me understand the complexities of the Nubian culture(s), but also to understand the need for continuing research. I'm very glad I bought this book!

The information is written in a form that is easy to understand by non-historians, and highlights a chapter in world history that has been overlooked for far too long. The contributions of ancient Nubia to all aspects of mankind's development is finally being done justice. As a professional photographer having spent three weeks in Egypt in 2011shotting over 2,500 pictures, the quality of the photography by Chester Higgins Jr. is exceptional, and is exemplary of his work throughout a long , and illustrious career.