My interest in ancient Egypt began early in my childhood and became more intense during my secondary school years when I discovered Piazzi-Smyth’s Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid. I eventually sought to know more about the culture of Egypt as it was preserved in its own artifacts, somewhat in the way that Flinders Petrie was to debunk Piazzi-Smyth’s famous work by accurately measuring the monuments. After experience in the U.S. Army as a topographic surveyor and a technical illustrator I was privileged to participate at length in two major excavations, first at the site of Mendes in the Nile delta and later in the Precinct of the Goddess Mut at Karnak. Those activities, my lengthy museum experience of dealing firsthand with a wide range of Egyptian artifacts, and an early involvement with the investigation of mummies as a founding member and participant in the just-emerging Paleopathology Society have given me a series of varied and immediate experiences in the art and objects that make up the material world of ancient Egypt.