From the awesome grandeur of the great pyramids to the delicacy of a face etched on an amulet, the power of the art of ancient Egypt persists to this day. This beautifully illustrated book conducts us through the splendors of this world, great and small, and into the mysteries of its fascination in its day as well as in our own. What did art, and the architecture that housed it, mean to the ancient Egyptians? Why did they invest such vast wealth and effort in its production?

These are the puzzles Gay Robins explores as she examines the objects of Egyptian art - the tombs and wall paintings, the sculpture and stelae, the coffins, funerary papyri, and amulets - from its first flowering in the Early Dynastic period to its final resurgence in the time of the Ptolemies.