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Karol Mysliwiec, Twilight of Ancient Egypt: First Millennium b.c.e. Translated from the German by David Lorton. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000. Pp. xv + 232. ISBN 0-8014-8630-0 (paper). $24.95.
The study of the last millennium b.c.e. in Egypt, covering the so-called Late Period as well as the Saite-Persian and Ptolemaic periods, has usually, until recently, been dismissed by Egyptologists as uninteresting, confusing, and ultimately unimportant compared to the high culture of the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms. Twenty years ago indeed, it would have been fair to suggest that there was very little interesting work going on in the study of the first millennium b.c.e.. Of course, there have always been exceptions, but most Egyptologists focused on the periods when an apparently strong central state was ruled by an Egyptian king (the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms). This emphasis has certainly changed, and there are several reasons for it.
One has been the reinvigoration in the publication and study of Demotic texts. Another has been the intensive archaeological investigation of the Delta. If the Egyptian state was oriented toward the south and out to the Red Sea in the first two millennia of its history (3000-1000 B.C.E.), then we can assert that during the last millennium B.C.E. an important shift occurred - the political and social orientation of Egypt was for the most part clearly oriented toward the north, in the Delta and out into the Mediterranean. This shift began with the Ramessides, and their transferal of political power to the Delta was reinforced with Egypt's involvement in the wars between Greece and Persia. This shift is increasingly understood...