exact and communicable knowledge of whose existence and scope it behoves
all modern culture to take cognisance, this work of M. Maspero still
remains the Handbook of Egyptian Archaeology. But Egyptology is as yet in
its infancy; whatever their age, Egyptologists will long die young. Every
year, almost every month, fresh material for the study is found, fresh
light is thrown upon it by the progress of excavation, exploration, and
research. Hence it follows that, in the course of a few years, the standard
text-books require considerable addition and modification if they are to be
of the greatest value to students, who must always start from the foremost
vantage-ground.

The increasing demand for the _Egyptian Archaeology_ by English and
American tourists, as well as students, decided the English publishers to
issue a new edition in as light and portable a form as possible. This
edition is carefully corrected, and contains the enlarged letterpress and
many fresh illustrations necessary for incorporating within the book
adequate accounts of the main archaeological results of recent Egyptian
excavations. M. Maspero has himself revised the work, indicated all the
numerous additions, and qualified the expression of any views which he has
seen reason to modify in the course of his researches during the past eight
years. By the headings of the pages, the descriptive titles of the
illustrations, and a minute revision of the index, much has been done to
facilitate the use of the volume as a book of reference. In that capacity
it will be needed by the student long after he first makes acquaintance
with its instructive and abundant illustrations and its luminous
condensation of the archaeological facts and conclusions which have been
elucidated by Egyptology through the devotion of many an arduous lifetime
during the present century, and, not least, by the unremitting labours of
M. Maspero.