ABSTRACT
Through the millennia of its history, Ancient Egypt was viewed from a variety of perspectives by the peoples and states with whom it came into contact. And any given state or people could itself experience an almost limitless range of perspectives on Egypt through time, and also through its social strata, as its relationships with Egypt evolved. In this book we present a sample of those perspectives on Egypt from the ancient past, in order that we may appreciate as fully as possible the cultural, social and political contexts within which Egypt was situated. Broadly speaking, the chapters make use of two major categories of primary source, occasionally both: archaeology and written texts. A chronological dividing line between the two types of source occurs at roughly 1500 BC, so that chapters dealing with pre-1500 BC are essentially, but not exclusively, non-textual archaeological, while those dealing with periods from 1500 BC onwards rely more intensively on written sources. Any such dichotomy is at the same time a reflection of research choices leading to apparently differing availability of the sources, part of a trend whereby archaeologists have expended much of their efforts on earlier periods, electing not to invest energies in the excavation of later settlement sites, such as those of the Roman period, where rich textual sources are present.
