The royal tombs of ancient Egypt include some of the most stupendous monuments of all time, containing some of the greatest treasures to survine from the ancient world. Thsi book is a history of the burial places of the rulers of Egypt from the very dawn of history down to and beyond the country's absorbtion into the Roman Empire, three millennia later. During this time, the tombs ranged from mudbrick-lined pits in the desert, through pyramid-topped labyrinths to superbly-decorated galleries penetrating deep into the rock of the Valley of the Kings. The first book to embrace in detail the entire range of tombs of kings, queens, princes and princesses, it covers the full extent of royal funerary monuments - not only the actual burial place, but also the placd where the worlds of the living and the dead came together in the temples that were built to provide for the dead pharoah's soul. --book jacket.