But when the Pharaoh dies without an heir, she is given instead as Great Royal Wife to the new king - a soldier of common birth. For Ahmose is god-chosen, gifted with the ability to read dreams, and it is her connection to the gods which ensures the new Pharaoh his right to rule.Ahmose's elder sister Mutnofret has been raised to expect the privileged station of Great Royal Wife; her rage at being displaced cannot be soothed. As Ahmose fights the currents of Egypt's politics and Mutnofret's vengeful anger, her youth and inexperience carry her beyond her depth and into the realm of sacrilege.To right her wrongs and save Egypt from the gods' wrath, Ahmose must face her most visceral fear: bearing an heir. But the gods of Egypt are exacting, and even her sacrifice may not be enough to restore the Two Lands to safety.

    In this retelling of nine tales of ancient Egypt, Marcia Williams uses her signature comic-strip style to capture the rich mythology and early history of this great civilization. Beginning with powerful Ra rising from the waters of the Nile to create the gods of the earth, sky, and rain, Ancient Egypt takes readers through the curse of King Tut's tomb and the rise of Cleopatra-- with Rami, Ra's beloved cat, highlighting Egypt's many cultural and technological advances along the way. An instantly engaging, accessible introduction to an ancient civilization, this collection of stories is sure to fascinate and inspire young Egyptologists.

    The book draws a fascinating picture of the deep links between the cultures across the Mediterranean and explores the ways in which these civilizations continue to be influential to this day. Beginning with the emergence of the earliest Egyptian civilization around 3500 BC, Charles Freeman follows the history of the Mediterranean over a span of four millennia to AD 600, beyond the fall of the Roman empire in the West to the emergence of the Byzantine empire in the East. The author examines the art, architecture, philosophy, literature, and religious practices of each culture, set against its social, political, and economic background. Especially striking are the readable and stimulating profiles of key individuals throughout the ancient world, covering persons like Homer, Horace, the Pharaoh Akhenaten, and Alexander the Great. The second edition incorporates new chapters on the ancient Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East, as well as extended coverage of Egypt. Egypt, Greece and Rome is a superb introduction for anyone seeking a better understanding of the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean and their legacy to the West.

    It has been the subject of myth, legend, and folklore; the villain, and occassional hero, of films and novels. Today, the vampire is alive and flourishing in hit television shows, special night clubs, and even comic books.With more than 2,000 entries in A - Z format, The Vampire Encyclopedia offers information on a variety of subjects: the history of the vampire legend methods of finding and destroying vampires how to become a vampire the role of the vampire bat all about female vampires and much more! There are listings of films, appendices that list short stories and novels that feature vampires, even a listing of vampire societies and organizations. Whether traditional vampires or psychic vampires; historical vampires or vampires in poetry and art, they are all included in this comprehensive, single-volume reference guide to the undead.

    With its copious illustrations, it forms an indispensable and unrivaled reference work for everybody interested in art, drama, poetry, anthropology or religion.There is no surviving account in ancient Greek literature of of stories as important as the fall of Troy or Theseus and the Minotaur. It is to visual sources that we have to turn for much of our knowledge of the myths. Vase paintings, engraved gems and sculpture in bronze and and stone often pre-date reference to the myths in literature or offer alternative versions to the familiar accounts; always they throw light on the way the Greeks understood the stories of gods and heroes.

    From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.

    Other tellings can be found under "all editions," each credited to its respective storyteller.

    'Astrology must be right,' wrote the American astrologer Evangeline Adams, claimed descendant of John Quincy Adams, in a challenge to skeptics in 1929. 'There can be no appeal from the Infinite.' The Fated Sky explores both the history of astrology & the controversial subject of its historical influence. It's the 1st serious book to fully engage astrology in this way. Astrology is the oldest occult sciences, also the origin of science itself. Astronomy, mathematics & other disciplines arose in part to make possible the calculations necessary in casting horoscopes. For 5000 years, the influence of the stars has been viewed as shaping the course of affairs. According to recent polls, at least 30% of Americans believe in it, tho modern astrology is utterly different from the doctrine of the stars that won the respect & allegiance of the greatest thinkers, scientists & writers--Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Arab & Persian--of earlier days. Statesmen, popes & kings once embraced it. Th Aquinas found it compatible with Xian faith. There are some 200 allusions to it in Shakespeare's plays, all their predictions fulfilled. The great astronomers of the scientific revolution--Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler--were adherents. Newton's appetite for mathematics was whetted by an astrological text. Prominent figures such as Churchill, deGaulle & Reagan have consulted astrologers, heeding their advice. Universities as diverse as Oxford & Spain's Univ. of Zaragoza offer courses in the subject, fulfilling Jung's prediction that astrology would again become the subject of serious discourse. Whether astrology actually has the powers ascribed to it is open to debate. But there's no doubt that it maintains a hold on the human mind. The Fated Sky gives a comprehensive account of this subject & its enduring influence on history & the history of ideas.

    Their relationship continued until 1601, when the Earl of Essex was beheaded for treason. And, in a succession of brilliant scenes, Strachey portrays the Queen's and the Earl's compelling attraction for on another, their impassioned disagreements, and their mutual contest for power, which led to a final, tragic confrontation. Here we also have superb portraits of influential people of the time: Francis Bacon, Robert Cecil, Walter Raleigh, and other figures of the court who struggled to assert themselves in a kingdom that was primarily defined by her sovereign, and so now seen through history's lens as Elizabethan England.

    She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us.” —Hilary MantelIn myth, Theseus was the slayer of the child-devouring Minotaur in Crete. What the founder-hero might have been in real life is another question, brilliantly explored in The King Must Die. Drawing on modern scholarship and archaeological findings at Knossos, Mary Renault’s Theseus is an utterly lifelike figure—a king of immense charisma, whose boundless strivings flow from strength and weakness—but also one steered by implacable prophecy.The story follows Theseus’s adventures from Troizen to Eleusis, where the death in the book’s title is to take place, and from Athens to Crete, where he learns to jump bulls and is named king of the victims. Richly imbued with the spirit of its time, this is a page-turner as well as a daring act of imagination.Renault’s story of Theseus continues with the sequel The Bull from the Sea.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary Renault including rare images of the author.

    In this essay, Jung applies his analytical skills to the UFO phenomenon. Rather than assuming that the modern prevalence of UFO sightings are due to extraterrestrial craft, Jung reserves judgment on their origin & connects UFOs with archetypal imagery, concluding that they have become a "living myth." This essay is intriguing in its methodology & implications as to the nature of UFOs & their relation to the human psyche.

    (Except secretly you really do you masochistic, beastly person you.) Illustrated, painfully funny and drop-your-jaw ridiculous, this is trivia from the cesspit of time that you won't be able to stop reading once you start.*To aid childbirth.**They exploded it with 100 times too much dynamite and rained blubber down on unsuspecting people and buildings.***Decency prevents us from answering this one here. You'll have to buy the book to find out.

    From the Irish merrows who come on land to search for human husbands to the fake Fiji Mermaid made popular by P.T Barnum, these sea maidens (and sometimes men) can be found in folklore and mythology from every tradition in the world.Inside this captivating collection, complete with beautiful illustrations throughout, you'll discover the myths surrounding these enigmatic beings, explore the common symbols associated with them, and learn tales of merfolk from around the world. Dive into Mermaids and get swept away!

    -- Alan Dundes. Propp's work is seminal...[and], now that it is available in a new edition, should be even more valuable to folklorists who are directing their attention to the form of the folktale, especially to those structural characteristics which are common to many entries coming from even different cultures. -- Choice

    They include "The New Babylonian Creation", which was recited at the new year festival in honour of the god Marduk and his conquest of Tiamat, "Inanna's Journey to Hell", in which the goddess of fertility descends into a gloomy wasteland of devils and darkness, and "Adapa: the Man", a story of man's fall from grace, not through disobedience but through blind obedience. N.K. Sanders also translated "The Epic of Gilgamesh".