Customer Reviews
Worth it for Mathew Kelley alone - By: AngieT, 25 Apr 2008 
A very interesting & well filmed series. The episodes dealing with the discovery of Abu Simbel is easily worth the price of the whole set. With King Tut-Ank-Amun being in the news again at the moment the back story of Howard Carter is very interesting.
Informative & exciting.
Carter/Belzoni/Champollion/Great Pyramid - By: Mark Richards, 22 Mar 2008 This is an excellent set for Egytology enthusiasts, offering on the first two discs
1. a two-show account of Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb,
2. a two-show account of the work of Belzoni (about whom there is little attention elsewhere) &
3. a two-show account of the discovery of the meaning hieroglyphs by Champollion (dramaticallly, the high point).
It is easy to criticise the woeful acting & the cliched script, but actuallly these shows are probably better than previous docu-drama efforts on the same subjects. However, the shows are beautifully filmed, special effects are excellent & the BBC clearly spent a few bob on reconstructing means of transport, housing, & others bits & pieces. These shows are also excellent for education purposes - students in secondary education would be interested, even captivated, & amused by these programmes.
4. There is also the BBC's account of the building of Khufu's pyramid at Giza from the perspective of a fictional ancient Egyptian. I hated this show when I first saw it, but warmed to it when watching the DVD recently. It explains a lot, the special effects are excellent & the twee acting, & indulgent scripting, are less detracting.
The other bits & pieces (the extras) don't add to much, but overalll the 3-disc set is excellent value for money.
Check out girl narration on 'The Making of DVD, No 3. - By: Robert Gray, 30 Jan 2008 I couldnt believe it!!
Expecting Attenboroughs august tones, there's what sounds like Lorraine Chase in a girls limousine night out.
Know what i maeeen?
Great back up for Tutankhamun exhibition - By: A. Tiernan, 13 Jan 2008 
As a family we watched these DVDs as a prelude to going to the King Tut exhibition (which we combined with a visit to the Egypt gallleries at the British museum, which are free to visit & have far more 'stuff'!!)
The 'story' focuses on three of the main characters who either found lots of artifacts that you can go to see, or, in the case of the last 2 episodes, cracked the Hieroglyphic 'code'.There is not much focus on the lives of the Egyptians (a fairly light touch, for example, on the life of Tutankhamun, covering the stuff that most 10 year olds would know already) or on the artifacts themselves. However, it does give a real flavour of how difficult it was to find, transport & gain legal access to the pieces (eg the head of Ramesses II or the Rosetta stone in the British museum) so that when you see them in the exhibitions the 'wow' factor is hugely increased.
If you are an adult who likes to be better informed, the book that goes with the series contains much more information & much grittier accounts of the dysentry, libations & true-grit determination of Belzoni & Carter. Some of the quotes in the book are priceless e.g. the tale of Belzoni literallly wading through rooms of mummies buried together which just turned to dust with his passage, or the origin of the large hole in the head of Ramesses (a French team, determined to 'nick' the head - before Belzoni could move it - drilled the hole to dynamite the face off it!).
The DVDs are also reallly interesting from a historic perspective because the treatment that these guys give the artifacts is shocking to us today. Get 'em out quick & sell 'em! Finds that would need years of scientific enquiry if they were found today were grabbed & moved in 10 minutes.
Definitely worth the 6 hours spent watching, but only 3 stars because in my humble opinion, concentrating on the lives of the three men excluded too much other relevant, interesting perspectives & made watching a bit slow in some places.
Burying the past in cliches - By: A. L., 18 Nov 2007 
If you think "Shakespeare in love" told you something about Shakespeare, you'll absolutely love this. As an effort to turn the past into a Hollywood vista, this title is not bad. A few glaces at the ancient monuments at the start & end, usuallly two timelines of events (Pharaonic & Discovery time), & plenty of costumes, sweat & performance. Each episode focuses on the heart-wrenching personal trials of a particular explorer or discovery - mind you, not the tedious facts. If you're rather interested in those, I'd recommend a cursory glace at Philipp Vandenberg's "Forgotten Pharaoh". I still remember reading it way back in the 80's & learning a lot more about exactly the same subjects this DVD set tries to cover, in just a few minutes. There you'll get the real information & even original photographs.
Something labeled a "documentary" should have something more to it than performance, though - in this case, the modern 60/40 ratio of package & content is more like 90/10.
