Renowned historian Jan Assmann traces the Egyptian civilization from its beginnings in the fifth millennium B.C.E. until the rise of Christianity 4500 years later through the roles of the pharaohs, priests, and the imperial bureacracy. Most strikingly, he focuses on the multiple notions of time, the structures of immorality, and the commitment to the principle of social justice and human fellowship during the time of ancient Egypt. (Originally published in Germany in 1996 under the title Agypten, Eine Sinngeschichte.).