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An unusually sturdy, attractive set, complete in two volumes, of Egypt: descriptive, historical, and picturesque, with an Introduction and notes by S. Birch, Keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities in the British Museum, President of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, Etc., Etc., Etc. Translation of the original German of G. [Georg] Ebers by Ms Clara Bell. Particularly lovely, large, involved initial letters, headers, some historiated initials here and there. Author Preface to both volumes by Georg Ebers, dated Leipsic, 1878. Translator's notes to both volumes, thanking the late Dr. Edward Meyer, "long a resident of the East," for the orthography of the Arabic words. An undated reprint of the First English Edition, but Cassell and Company, Limited, commenced operations as a book publisher in 1887 thus likely circa 1888 or thereabouts. Tall, thick, heavy folio format hardcovers measuring 15" tall x 12" wide, lovely pictorial cloth over heavy brown sailcloth rebind, original front and rear panels and backstrip added thereover. Volume I noticeably rubbed and less bright and fresh than Volume II, whose front cover is quite handsome, sharp and clear. Remarkably sturdy of brown cloth over tips, spine, spine head and foot, newer endcaps, gilt edges all-round, new heavy marbled card-stock endpapers. Volume II is remarkably bright and clean of interior, start to finish. One original endpaper and half-title of Volume I is a bit grubby and tape-repaired but intact and complete. Brilliant full-page frontispieces to both volumes, tissue-guarded. Collated as complete: heavy card-stock endpapers, half-title, title page, Preface, Translator's note, Table of Contents, List of Artists Employed in the Volume (Berninger, Burger, Dillon, Fiedler, Gentz, Gnauth, Hecht, Heyn, Huber, Jerichau-Baumann, Keller, Korner, Kretzchmer, Kuhn, Lenbach, Loffler, Machytka, Makart, Muller, Ramstahal, Richter, Schmoranz, Schonn, Seeel, Strassberger, Tadema, Theuerkauf, Weidenbach, Welsch, Werner, and then a list of illustrations, seven pages long to both volumes. Illustrations are both full-page plates of what appear to be steel-engravings, and many, many score more hors-texte. The author, born Georg Moritz Ebers (1 March 1837 ? 7 August 1898) was a particularly influential German Egyptologist, but he wrote novels, too. His Wikipedia entry says that he "is best known for his purchase of the Ebers Papyrus, one of the oldest Egyptian medical documents in the world." He was born in Berlin, had four older siblings, but his father committed suicide upon his birth, leaving his mother a widow and raising five children. She "ran a salon popular among members of the intelligentsia, which included Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the Grimm Brothers, and Alexander von Humboldt." He studied jurisprudence and trained in multiple "Oriental" languages but also prepared to become a professional archaeologist, becoming an academic Dozent in Egyptology. He traveled twice to Egypt, his Aegypten und die Bücher Moses appearing in 1867?1868. Quite spectacularly, he discovered the so-called Ebers Papyrus in 1874 in Thebes and then translated this Egyptian medical treatise composed of a cure for cancer (Wikipedia), a papyrus dated to ca. 1550 BCE, that is considered one of the two oldest surviving medical documents; the document "mentions more than 700 substances and medical recipes that include incantations and concoctions." Volume I: xxiv, 1-314 pp. Volume II: xxii, 388 pp., again, with spectacular frontispiece, 16 full-page plates, and numerous text-figures.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.
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