Fifty years on intense archaeological research in Egypt and at such world-famous sites as Ur of the Chaldees, Byblos, Ra's Shamra and Boghaz Koy have enormously extended our knowledge of the material and spiritual life of the ancient Near East. This book describes what we know about the complex religion of Egypt which, combining a multitude of local gods and intimately linked with the supremacy of the Pharaohs, was essentially a religion without theology except for the brief interlude of Akh-en-aton, the reforming pharaoh. The second part describes the complex interrelated religions of western Asia, of the Hittites and Hurrites, of Summer and Babylon, the Elamites and the Phoenicians.