The aim of my books is to take by the hand a public that is enthusiastic about the trails of ancient Egypt.
The tracks I am referring to are those that run across in particular two periods of the history and civilisation of the Egyptians: the Predynastic and the Rameside Era.
The first corresponds to the main period of the formative process of Egyptian civilisation, interpreted as the foundation of social, spiritual and cultural factors, etc. that promoted, favoured or conditioned the outcomes, the facts, the appearances and the like, connected with that phenomenon.
The second sees great Pharaohs succeed to the head of a rich and powerful empire that extended from Nubia to the Mediterranean Sea, from the Libyan desert to the Red Sea and the River Euphrates; in the same period the first great Mediterranean civilisations flourished: that of the Minoans (Crete), that of the Mycenaeans (continental Greece and the Aegean region of Anatolia) and that of the Hittites (the rest of Anatolia).

The volume “Predynastic Egyptian Sovereigns”, published in 2006 by the publisher Ananke of Turin is based on cultural developments and great collective events of the Egyptian Predynastic. Some updates and analyses on the same subject are contained in another soon to be published book of mine: "Before the Pyramids. The Origins of Egyptian Civilisation". Instead, the volume "In the Time of the Ramesides", published by Ananke in 2008, deals with the Minoan, Mycenaean and Hittite civilisations and their reciprocal relations and with the Egyptian civilisation. It deals with an historical account based upon the beautiful Bronze Age and its disturbing ending.

The Predinastic period in the Nile Valley coincided with the formation and development of the cultural environment that took its name from the architectural complex at Naqada, situated in the Bight of Qena. The Naqada culture had a poor start, then underwent a formidable acceleration, finally attaining a very considerable outcome. In the second half of its development path it expanded into the Delta region, first colonising the local cultures, then superimposed itself on them. The homologising of Lower Egypt with the triumphant culture of Upper Egypt was followed by the unification of the two lands. Thus the archaic Egyptian State was born, originally as a Pharaonic State.

The Pharaonic State lasted with ups and downs for almost three millennia and was characterised by thirty-two successive dynasties, of which the last two followed upon the military conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C.


The Rameside Era (around 1306-1070 B.C.) spanned the 19th and 20th dynasties and saw eleven sovereigns with the Rameses name succeeding to the throne. The greatest among those kings were the second and third. What is still remembered about them today is related to the roles carried out respectively by the first in the Egyptian-Hittite conflict and by the second in the defence of Egypt against emigration and invasion of the Sea People.
Rameses II, because the Great King Muwatalli II attempted to expand territorially at the expense of the Asian provinces of the Pharaonic State, went to war against him. The tremendous clash between the two empires – the two super-powers of the age – took place in Syria; it culminated in the battle of Qadesh (1274 B.C.), one of the greatest and bloodiest of ancient history, and ended without a winner or loser. There followed the signing of an international treaty that recognised as a legal status the actual situation that existed before the conflict. The reigning ex-enemy dynasties then cultivated excellent reciprocal relations.


Around 1200 B.C. the Minoan, Mycaenean and Hittite civilisations, for different reasons, entered at the same time into irreversible crisis. From that predicament the Sea People, a medley of Mediterranean populations, who had a common predatory intention, made a comeback.
The Sea People, after having contributed to the fall of Hittite Empire, demolished the reign in Cyprus and, one after the other, like tenpins, the city states that shared control of the Mediterranean coast of southwest Asia. They then directed their attention to Egypt. The powerful army of Rameses III waited for them at the entrances to the eastern Delta. The Pharaoh repulsed the invaders. The losers took flight and scattered. Some were used as mercenary troops in the Egyptian army. Some settled in Palestine; they would be mentioned in the “Bible” with the Philistine ethnic group. The remainder left the scene once and for all, disappearing into nowhere. Meanwhile a new population was being formed on the Lebanese coast: the Phoenicians. A little later another population reached Palestine from Egypt: the Israelites.

My books use a scientific and popular approach and inter-disciplinary method. They are mainly intended for a non-specialist readership, but may be useful as a general summary also for those working in the field.
"Predynastic Egyptian Sovereigns” and "Before the Pyramids" in particular, concern material that is little–known in Italy, but very interesting and richly fascinating. The study of the Egyptian predynastic period holds unexpected surprises. Analysing its many aspects is a useful exercise in understanding, amongst other things, how a finally successfully proposed attractive theory on the genesis of Egyptian civilisation is considered by many as insufficiently reliable. I am referring to the thesis according to which the Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus pyramids and the Giza Sphinx would have had a “forerunner” in the obscure past.
I personally believe that in the remote past of Egypt there were no visits from aliens, nor the miracle of a mysterious Atlantis civilisation arising from nowhere and wrecked in a night. The Egyptian civilisation was the fruit of the continuing work of individuals and entire populations and the constant refinement of techniques and thought. Its formation was a long process of socio-economic and political change, nurtured and favoured by contacts, physical mixing and cultural osmosis with a series of populations and cultures: African, Asian and Mediterranean.

Regarding my "In the Time of the Ramesides", it is necessary to say first of all that the Bronze Age is one of the most interesting fields of investigation for the study of the first urban societies. It does not often happen that a public “not involved in the field” is offered a comprehensive summary of the historical and cultural developments of the second millennium B.C. To know the internal dynamics of that picture helps the understanding of not only the reasons for the greatness of the Pharaonic State during its period of greatest power and splendour, but also when, how and why southeast Europe and western Asia travelled from pre-history to history.
I will be very pleased to attempt to reply effectively to any questions put to me on the predynastic Egyptian period and the Rameside Era through the "guest-book" on this website.

I would like to warmly welcome all the visitors to the site and thank them very much. I hope they will become my readers.

The above-mentioned books are available in bookshops or through booksellers, or by request directly from the publisher: 

Ananke, via Lodi, 27/c,
10152, Torino;
Tel. 011 2474362;
Fax 011 2407249;
e-mail: info@ananke-edizioni.com;
www.ananke-edizioni.com.

Natale Barca