Graham Dean, the prominent - and controversial - postprocessualist Egyptologist, looks set to divide academic opinion once again - with the publication of a history of ancient Egypt co-written with his two young children. Overall editorial control for the book, provisionally entitled "Egypt: Stupid and Smells of Poo" was apparently handed to Jake Dean. It will be the seven year old's first major Egyptological publication, and something of a coup for his current academic home, Hampstead Preparatory School. His complete lack of formal Egyptological experience is shared by Maisey Dean, five, who has contributed three of the book's twelve chapters. She has also produced all of the volume's illustrations.

The book promises to set out one of the most comprehensive revisions of accepted ideas about ancient Egypt ever proposed. Amongst the many radical departures from orthodoxy, perhaps the most eye-catching is the reorganisation of the system of Dynasties and Kingdoms into which Egyptian rulers have traditionally been divided. In place of the 30 Dynasties that comprise the accepted Old, Middle and New Kingdoms, the new work will propose seventeen and a half 'bunches' of kings, with a novel system of nomenclature that Dean Senior briefly explained to us yesterday. "Egyptology has long been straitjacketed by its overtly prejudicial, patriarchal and imperialistic terminology," he said. "Our system successfully negotiates these issues by borrowing an ontology from entirely outside of the traditional Egyptological lexicon. That's why the first six bunches of kings in our system are named after Jake's favourite Arsenal players. And the other eleven and a half are named after characters from the well known 'High School Musical' series of films."

Explaining why more than half of Egypt's rulers should now be understood to be either seven year old boys or five year old girls, Dean Senior told us: "Historiography cannot escape the contamination of the social. And you don't need to be a radical feminist theorist to realise that this contamination is overwhelmingly capitalist, patriarchal and militaristic. I think these are basic underpinning ideas that Maisey holds to be self-evident."

Explaining some of the more contentious departures from the academic mainstream - and his choice of co-authors - Dean cited his fashionably ludicrous postmodern theoretical leanings as the driving force for the project. "As anyone who has read even a brief summary of Foucault could tell you, truth is simply an effect of power. It follows that it is imperative that we as scientists of history should not privilege one truth position over another." Making 'air quotes' with his hands every subsequent time he pronounced the word 'truth', Dean continued: "Why should the 'truth' according to a professional Egyptologist of thirty years' training be privileged over that of a seven year-old child? Or a five year-old? How can I say that my 'truth' is more valid than Jake's?"

There will also be much in the volume for archaeologists to get their teeth into. According to Dean, Dean and Dean the monument at Giza hitherto referred to as 'The Great Pyramid' ought actually be renamed the 'Stupid Pyramid'. They suggest that the name 'Great Pyramid' should now be reserved for a two foot tall mound of sand in the desert some ten miles South of Giza, erected by Jake Dean during the family's most recent research visit to Egypt. The Egyptian Antiquities Service is reported to be working at full speed to build an access road and other infrastructure at the new site, in anticipation of an influx of tourists who had previously been unaware of its significance. It seems certain to become the most visited attraction in Egypt as soon as the new volume has been serialised. Dean Senior explained why: "It's about time Egyptology was more open to local knowledges - and I don't see why we shouldn't start with the local knowledges of my children. Nor, incidentally, do my children. We are freeing ourselves from dependence on an anachronistic concept of objective truth. I remember the moment that Jake first described the monument, saying: 'it is the Great Pyramid. It is. So there.' He couldn't have been much clearer about it - and instantly we had the local truth that had eluded the whole of Egyptology for centuries. And now we've written it down in a book, so, you know, it's basically the actual truth now."

The physical production of the much-anticipated book has posed some unusual challenges of its own. Dean Senior told us: "I can't believe it's taken my precious five year old princess to drag Egyptological publishing into the twenty-first century, but I'm proud of her for doing it. Adopting an experiential non-linear theoretical outlook, her illustrations often place herself - and me - at the centre of the narrative of Egyptian history, rejecting the orthodox metanarratives. Her numerous illustrations that use actual sand to represent the desert will be painstakingly replicated in each copy of the book." Publishers also reported production delays earlier this year while they attempted to source sufficient quantities of glitter, pasta shapes and pritt-stick to complete the initial print run.

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