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Another fascinating book from the heyday of comparative mythology, with an archaeological approach. Sharpe takes Biblical passages then explains and illustrates them using physical artifacts and other texts. For instance, a passage about signets from the Book of Daniel (p138) has an illustration of one, a description of how they were employed, which cultures used them, and how they were relatively uncommon in Egypt.
Samuel Sharpe (1799-1881) probably can't be better described than Wikipedia: "an English Unitarian banker who, in his leisure hours, made substantial contributions to Egyptology and Biblical translation." He published a large number of works including Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christianity, The History of Egypt Under the Romans, The Rosetta Stone in Hieroglyphics and Greek, The History of the Hebrew Language and the decidedly pulp-sounding The Triple Mummy Case of Aroeri-Ao. He worked on translating the Bible and was chosen as one of the scholars who contributed to the Revised Version. A biography by Peter William Clayden was published shortly after Sharpe's death.
