In the times of the pharoahs, the Egyptian's view of the world was fashioned by the blazing light of the sun.Bordered by high cliffs,the plains of the Nile River Valley lend themselves easily to this play of light and shadow. The daystar disperses a full range of colors on the objects it illuminates, from the phosphorescent red of sunrise to the harsh white of noon. At sunset, it bathes the sky of the western horizon in its fiery and dramatic light. The sun gives light and also warmth; at its zenith, it seems to make the statues and outdoor reliefs shimmer as if they were animated by an interior force.

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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, of pharaohs, kings, and emperors--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 captures these ancient stones in natural light, constituting a pictorial history of the world's most fascinating ancient civilizations.Amon Ra, Ramses 1I, Nofretari, Osiris and Isis,Hatshepsut, and the twin Colossi of Memnon are among the many deities, kings, and queens of ancient Egypt represented in the context of their temples and alongside remarkably detailed renderings of animal and plant life of the time. From the human to the divine, virtually all that is known of pharaonic times comes from these stones, which are captured by Champollion's lens in a range of settings, from the glowing rcd of sunrise, to the hard white light of midday, to the golden rays of sunset. Each image is further enhanced by informative captions by Diane Sarofim Harle, noted scholar of Egypt and Coptic archaeology: In this volume, these "stones of light" are revealed to be living beings, drawing scholars and travelers alike to come face to face with the divine.