Review of Manning, The Last Pharaohs, 305-30 BC

BOOK REVIEW:

Scholia Reviews ns 20 (2011) 8.

J. G. Manning, The Last Pharaohs: Egypt under the Ptolemies, 305-30 BC. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Pp. xvi + 264, incl. 18 black-and- white illustrations. ISBN 978-0-691-14262- 3. UK£27.95. Further Details.

John Atkinson
School of Languages and Literatures, University of Cape Town

Manning, with numerous previous publications in the field of Ptolemaic studies to his credit, here plunges straight into the issues which he proposes to address, and dispenses with the customary historical survey of the Ptolemaic period. His brief historical introduction is entitled 'Egypt in the First Millennium BC’ (pp. 19-28), and picks up the story from the end of the New Kingdom, giving more space to Persian rule than to the period of Alexander and Ptolemy. This is appropriate as he identifies with the trend in scholarship over the last three decades to lay greater stress on Egyptian culture in the Ptolemaic era, and on Persian administrative practices (p. 2).

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