Ancient Egypt
The scale of ancient Egyptian history is overwhelming. Americans (North and South) wrestle with the consequences of five hundred years of invasion, conquest, and settlement. Europeans argue over what delineates different phases of their history (modern, the rise of the nation-state, phases of the Renaissance, medieval, post-Roman, and so on). Well, that gets you back only 1500 years. Classicists pride their discipline on another thousand years. Egyptians look on, bemused. They go back 6000 years without breathing hard. Ancient Egypt (a deep and long category, obviously) represents a civilization that still fascinates us. Think pharaohs, pyramids, mummies, hieroglyphs, the Sphinx, the Nile, "King Tut." Children and adults love such stuff. I debated with myself whether to be a purist on Ancient Egypt and end my listings with Alexander the Great's conquest and the great era of the Ptolemaic dynasty, but you would miss so much in those 275 years leading up to the pragmatic and unimaginative Romans building their empire on Egyptian grain. I wanted to include the Pharos lighthouse, Alexandria and its library, Cleopatra. So I did, and I will. This page, these offerings, like the rest of Whistlestop, will be carefully curated and vetted and supplemented as I find and list interesting items.
The Sunbird
The Sunbird
The secrets of a once brilliant civilization--buried for nearly 200 years in South Africa--seem about to yield to the probings of modern man.
But in this tale of high adventure, the riddles of an ancient culture conceal a menacing drama of love, hate, violence and death--all lying in wait to ambush an unsuspecting team of archaeologists. It is their fate to stumble across the find of a lifetime and to die by it as well.
"In the breathtaking backward sweep through time, the reader is transported to the last days of a lost and magnificent city and finds there a secret that finally gives up its terrible meaning." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)