Archaeologies of Social Life is a fascinating new perspective on everyday life in ancient Egypt. The author provides detailed discussions of new topics of debate, including the body, sexuality and issues of identity, while also addressing some of the traditional questions in archaeology about society and self, the individual and social relations.

The book is unusual in examining ordinary life in ancient Egypt rather that focusing on the traditional subjects of pharaohs and elites. Meskell makes Egyptian social history available to an archaeological audience and shows the reader how factors such as age, class, sex and ethnicity were played out in the lives of real people.

The author takes an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, combining theories of third wave feminism with the archaeological data of New Kingdom Egypt. She presents innovative theory from the social sciences and puts it into practice to reveal individuals in antiquity, relating the issues of their lives to our experience of society today.