Egypte

Two volumes. Small folio. Pp. xlvii, (1), 532, plus 75 plates with multiple images to each, and 6 large, folding plans bound at end. With 325 illustrations to text; xxv, (3),107, plus 55 plates with multiple images to each, and 147 illustrations on 21 separately printed leaves, bound at end. Hardcover, uniformly bound in the original publisher's forest green cloth, small insignificant mark at bottom corner, gilt lettering to covers and spines, volume II with worn dust-jacket. In a very good condition, fine interiors. ~ First edition. Complete set. Volume II completed and revised by William Stevenson Smith and published posthumously. George Andrew Reisner (1867-1942) was the first person to make fully systematic excavations in Egypt, exploiting the technique of recorded digging much further than Petrie and earlier archaeologists had done. This attention to every detail and the scrupulous care taken meant that although his reports were much fuller than those of his predecessors, they also required much more time for preparation, resulting in a great part of his work remaining incomplete and unpublished at his death. His publications were of great importance and of monumental proportions, with a detailed study unknown before his time. The wonderful plates in Volume I are printed in collotype, one of the most accurate and attractive methods of photomechanical tonal printing processes. Highly skilled and expensive process, it cannot produce more than a limited number of impressions. It has been used for single-sheet prints and luxury portfolios, and since the 1950s has been abandoned by all except a few small specialist firms. Beinlich-Seeber 16565 (vol. I).