Sacred Deities of Ancient Egypt

Written from the perspective of an artist with a deep and abiding interest in the psychoanalytic roots of symbol and metaphor, and "illustrated" with her own photographs, Sacred Deities of Ancient Egypt takes us on a personal journey to explore both the meaning-always with an eye toward contemporary relevance-and the astonishing beauty of ancient Egyptian art. With Thurston as our guide, we do not tread on familiar ground or rehash information found elsewhere, but rather participate in the artist's quest for fresh insight as we plumb the profound depths of Egyptian cosmology. Working alone, carrying her own equipment, photographing with an unobtrusive handheld camera, without access to a tripod or a flash, a woman in her late sixties, a solo traveler in a foreign land, Thurston faced daunting technical challenges. The dark interiors of tombs and grand temples of ancient Egypt, unevenly lit with fluorescent panels that cast a garish greenish glow on the lower portion of the walls, leaving the upper walls in shadow and distorting the paintings' colors, were nightmarish. Many of the photographs in Sacred Deities have never before been reproduced.