Includes descriptions of 20 important artifacts, including the Sphinx, the Rosetta Stone, King Tut's funerary mask, and many more Africa may have given rise to the first human beings. And Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later.

From the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Ancient Egyptians produced several wonders of the world, revolutionized architecture and construction, created some of the world's first systems of mathematics and medicine, and established language and art that spread across the known world. With world-famous leaders like King Tut and Cleopatra, it's no wonder that today's world has so many Egyptologists.

What makes the accomplishments of the Ancient Egyptians all the more remarkable is that Egypt was historically a place of great political turbulence. Its position made it both valuable and vulnerable to tribes across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and Ancient Egypt had no shortage of its own internecine warfare. Its most famous conquerors would come from Europe, with Alexander the Great laying the groundwork for the Hellenic Ptolemy line and the Romans extinguishing that line after defeating Cleopatra and driving her to suicide.

Despite the fact Ancient Egyptian history happened so long ago and covered an immense span of time, Egyptologists are able to learn an incredible amount about different periods through examining the surviving texts now preserved in museums throughout the world and in the many temples and tombs in Egypt. Egyptologists know that the language of ancient Egypt went through many phases and was written in a variety of different scripts, such as the well-known hieroglyphic script and the cursive versions known as hieratic and demotic.