Adorning the temples, palaces, and monuments of the Nile River Valley, their inscrutable gazes look out across the millennia, bearing witness to the rise and fall of long-lost dynasties - just as they have witnessed the endless rise and fall of the sun. Timeless treasures of light and shadow, they are the sculpted stones of ancient Egypt. In this gorgeous book of images, photographer Herve Champollion portrays these ancient stones in natural light, creating a breathtaking pictorial history of one of the world's most fascinating ancient civilizations. Virtually all that is known of pharaonic times - from military campaigns to religious ceremonies to the everyday life of civilians - comes from these stones, which are captured by Champollion's lens in a range of settings, from the glowing red of sunrise, to the hard white light of midday, to the golden rays of sunset. Informative captions by noted scholar Diane Sarofim Harle enhance the images and help us to appreciate the grandeur of these "stones of light," which, through the ages, have beckoned visitors to come face to face with the divine.

Author Biography

Herve Champollion is a photographer who has published several books on Sicily, Greece, Scotland, Ireland, Jerusalem, Yemen, and Egypt. He is the great-grandnephew of Jean-Francois Champollion, the father of modern Egyptology. Diane Sarofim Harle heads the department of Egyptian antiquities at the Louvre Museum in Paris. She has published numerous studies on Egypt, notably L'Egypte de Jean-Francois Champollion, with Herve Champollion.