The Great Goddesses of Egypt

The Great Goddesses of Egypt
Barbara S. Lesko | 1900-01-01 00:00:00 | University of Oklahoma Press | 319 | Egypt
Reviews
It would have been nice if the seller had said it was an old, discarded library book. The book itself is OK, but I was disappointed to find out that the person selling it didn't disclose the fact that it was a discarded library book. I don't know why, but that bothers me.
Reviews
I bought this book because it was recommended in another book by Geraldine Pinch. I also recognized the author, Barbara Lesko, whose name is also attached to several collaborative works such as _Pharaoh's Workers: The Village of Deir el-Medina_. I was expecting a work of similar caliber, one that would present scholarly conclusions that rested squarely on the evidence presented. Frankly, I was disappointed.

This book does present some interesting bits of historical trivia, I will give it that. I could tell where Pinch got her citations from Lesko's information. There's also a bit of information on festivals toward the end of _Goddesses_ that I found new and illuminating. But to get to these juicy tidbits, I had to slog through what essentially amounted to academic bra-burning. After first contending that, just because neighboring civilizations also had primitive Mother Goddess creatrix-figures, prehistoric Egypt just HAD to have them as well, Lesko then goes on to paint Hathor as an 'invention' of the 'male-dominated' Heliopolitan clergy and Mut as a 'wise crone' whose union to Amun was a political convenience. Then she spent a chapter of glowing review on Isis, ending on the statement that "she was salvation". By the end of it, I found myself wondering if this author is a closet Dianic Wiccan, and that is not the sort of impression I need to come away with after reading what's supposed to be an scholarly work.

So readers, take this book with a grain of salt. She does dig up some little-known information on several goddesses, but the info is best taken separately from her overtly gender-biased assertions.
Reviews
Written by an egyptologist, this book is well-researched and yet at the same time easy to read and provides information lots of information in one book that I have only been able to glean from many different texts. It includes info on how the goddesses were viewed over time in relation to the culture and to the male gods. I thoroughly enjoyed it.The Great Goddesses of Egypt
Reviews
Basically, an adequate book for beginners, but nothing original or new. Ms. Lesko takes other scholars' ideas, most notably Dr. Jan Assman and waters them down for popular consumption. This is acceptable for an amateur egyptologist like Ms. Lesko to do as long as the original work is cited. Fortunately, she uses good judgement in choosing scholarly works that are exceptional. Serious students of Egyptology, however, should go right to the source and forego this book.
Reviews
This is a great reference and in depth exploration into the many goddesses of a land I love....Egypt. It is not a picture book of any sort, it's power is in it's informational material.I found this book on my quest for knowledge of Hathor. This book gave me more then enough...and opened my eyes to interest in other deities of Egypt. I highly recommend it!

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