Five thousand years ago a great civilization flourished on the banks of the river Nile. Ruled over by awesome god-kings called Pharaohs, it thrived for more than 3,000 years, then gradually vanished from the face of the earth.

For many centuries little was known of this remarkable culture until, one day in 1799, a soldier in Napoleon's Egyptian Expeditionary Force came upon a stone covered with mysterious writing. Called the Rosetta Stone, it proved to be the key which unlocked the secrets of Egypt's rich past.

Slowly, through years of excavation, archaeologists have pieced together a picture of life in Ancient Egypt. This is the story of that fascinating society, and of the mighty Pharaohs who ruled it.

From the book