When the boy Tut-ankh-amun came to the throne of his ancestors about the year 1362 BC, Egypt had already existed as a kingdom for over 1700 years with a characteristic culture which, however, had adapted itself to the changed conditions of the Late Bronze Age. The great stone pyramids of Giza, Sakkarah and Dahshur had by then fallen into ruins, their mortuary cults had lapsed and they were visited only by sightseers looking at the past. In a song which the young king must have heard, the poet pointed to them as examples of the vanity of human aspirations as he exhorted his listeners to eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow death would come to them too.

Such moralisings did not prevent the Egyptians from burrying their Pharaoh with a wealth of treasure which, when it was found virtually intact in 1922, did nothing to dispel that aura of sensational mystery and exotic obscurity that has always surrounded the Ancient Egyptians from Classical times right down to the Romantic Age in which they were rediscovered. Many of the hoary old misconceptions still remain. In this booklet, the aim has been to show the Ancient Egyptians as a people trying to grapple with the problems of living in the world of the century in which Tut-ankh-amun reigned.