To secure a comfortable afterlife, ancient Egyptians builtfortress-like tombs and filled them with precious goods, a practice that' generated staggering quantities of artefacts over the course of many millennia, but that also, from the beginning, attracted theft. Drawing on modern scholarship, reportage and period sources'f this book tracks the history of treasure-seekers in Egyptand the social contexts in which they operated, revealing striking continuities throughout time. Readers will recognize the foibles of today's politicians and con artists, the perils of materialism, and the cycles of public compliance and dissent in the face^af injustice. In describing an age-old pursuit and its timeless motivations, A Short History of Tomb-Raiding shows how much we have in common with our Bronze Age ancestors. With 75 illustrations, Long-time resident of Cairo MARIA GOLIA is the author of critically acclaimed books dealing with Egypt's present moment and past history, as well as a cultural history, Meteorite: Nature and Culture (2016)#tand the biography Ornette Coleman: The Territory and the Adventure (2020).