Reviews (12)

If you miss the exhibit , buy the book
I will see the Exhibit in Chicago and have visited the Cairo Museum, but this book is like revisiting the exhibit or the next best thing to seeing it!

Zahi Hawass brings it all to life with fascinating detail
King Tut died around 1350 BC. and theories on the cause of death range from a hunting accident to murder. X-rays revealed signs of a blow to the back of his head, however. After his tomb was found in 1922, his death mask and golden coffin became among the most famous Egyptian artifacts in the world. The teenage king of ancient Egypt is best-known by his golden death mask. But a fiberglass reconstruction of Tutankhamen based on computer models generated X-rays in 1969 of his mummified corpse bear little resemblance to the golden funeral mask found in the pharaoh's tomb. But Tut's mummified head was too dried and sunken to give life-like dimensions for the reconstruction team said National Geographic.
The Original King of Bling
Tutankhamen makes the Crown Jewels look like costume jewelry.I saw the exhibit in Fort Lauderdale, and it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.Everywhere you look there's another 3500-year-old masterpiece crusted with gold and jewels, and Tut was just one of many Pharaohs - they all received this kind of treatment.
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Subjects:  1. Ancient - Egypt    2. Antiquities    3. Archaeological Museums And Collections    4. Archaeology    5. Egypt    6. Eighteenth dynasty, ca. 1570-1    7. Eighteenth dynasty, ca. 1570-1320 B.C.    8. Exhibitions    9. Historical Archaeology    10. History    11. History - General History    12. History: World    13. King of Egypt    14. Middle East - Egypt    15. Tutankhamen,    16. African history: BCE to c 500 CE    17. Ancient Egypt    18. Egyptian archaeology    19. History / Ancient / Egypt   

Reviews (9)

A useful compendium of original source material
I obtained this volume of translations of Ancient Near Eastern texts and pictures along with its companionVolume I � An Anthology of Texts and Pictures which was first published in 1958.This volume, which was published in 1975,includes translations of more recently discovered material selected from the 1969 anthologyof Supplementary Texts and Pictures Relating to the Old Testament. A useful compendium of original source material
I bought this book along with its companion:Volume II � A New Anthology of Texts and Pictures,because it was time for me to see for myself what the the original sources had to say about the Ancient Near East. A Stimulating Resource
Volume II or "The Ancient Near East" is a good companion to Volume I, containing mythic, legal, and monumental information from the Middle East Bronze and Iron Ages. It really puts youback there to read actual letters and contracts, or to see the developments in poetic, narrative and visual arts. The only real problem is the lack of consistent dating infomation, particularly for the artwork. It makes it difficult to form a conceptual picture if things are presented in what appears to be a random order. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Ancient - General    2. Bible    3. Bible.    4. Collections    5. General    6. History    7. History of contemporary events    8. History: World    9. Middle East - Egypt    10. Middle Eastern literature    11. O.T    12. O.T.    13. Oriental literature    14. Philosophy    15. Translations into English    16. ASIA    17. Ancient World    18. Archaeology and Ancient History    19. Biblical archaeology    20. History / Egypt    21. Mind, Body, Spirit    22. Reference    23. Religion   

Subjects:  1. Archaeology    2. Archaeology / Anthropology    3. History    4. History: American    5. United States - Colonial Period    6. United States - General    7. United States - State & Local - South    8. American history: c 1500 to c 1800    9. North American archaeology    10. Virginia    11. c 1600 to c 1700   

Reviews (3)

Catalogue of a 1995-96 exhibition with 7 papers and pictures of the artifacts
This quite beautiful book is the product of an exhibition by the Art Museum of Princeton University that ran from December 1995 through February 1996.It was called "The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership".The first half of the book contains seven very interesting papers that made varying degrees of sense to me.Not because the papers were poor, but simply because I am not an authority in the field.Trying to weigh and interpret the scant threads of evidence (but the evidence is actually amazing) is tough for professionals.For amateurs like me, it is quite impossible to do much more than pay your money and take your chances.We follow along as best we can and watch developing trends in the scholarship.
Reconstructing a culture entirely from religious art
Mesoamerican archaeology is a little world by itself - I know, because I used to live in it. It has a very cosy relationship with museums and the "art" collectors who buy the objects that are looted from archaeological sites, which lie destroyed, torn into shreds under the forests all over Central America and Mexico. But it has almost no touch with reality any more. The things they say about the ancient Olmec are almost fantasy, because in truth we know so little about these people. Almost all the objects in this book were stolen from Mexico, ripped from the archaeological context that might tell us something about their real meaning. These are probably religious articles - we may never know. But imagine trying to reconstruct the rich life of rennaisance Italy by looking at reliquaries in Catholic churches! If you are still persuaded by the "mysterious Olmec" propaganda spouted by Coe and his looter buddies, go read Flannery & Marcusin the first 2000 issue of the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, and think it over.

A Must Have for any Olmec Enthusiast
The Olmec World is an amazing resource for those who study or have an appreciation of early Mesoamerican Art.At its most basic level The Olmec World is the catalogue of the 1996 Olmec Exhibition at the Art Museum at Princeton University the first comprehensive show of Olmec art in America.Drawing upon nearly all of the major Olmec museum collections in North America from Dunbarton Oaks to Princeton's own expansive holdings, the exhibition also drew heavily from many private collections never before shown to the general public.For instance, John Stokes' amazing collection of ceramic babies and jade masks are showcased in this catalogue.However, almost as impressive as the pictures are the essays in this collection.Michael Coe has done a marvelous job of soliticing and editing a myriad of papers on the mysterious Olmec. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. American - Native American    2. Art    3. Art & Art Instruction    4. Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions - General    5. Criticism - Native American    6. Exhibition Catalogs    7. Exhibitions    8. History - General    9. Indian art    10. Mexico    11. Olmec art    12. Archaeology    13. Central America    14. Ceramic arts, pottery, glass    15. History of art: pre-history    16. Museum, historic sites, gallery & art guides    17. Sculpture & other three-dimensional art forms    18. Social Science / Native American Studies   

Reviews (15)

Your Passport To The Next Life
What an absolute miracle we have these texts today, some four millennia after many of them were first conceived of in an ancient desert land! The story of the re-discovery in the nineteenth-century, after the last known copies were believed destroyed in Alexandria, is the recounting of an archeological miracle, and the fact that they survived the circumstances of their discovery at all amid corruption and mistrust in the black markets of Cairo is even more amazing.
A rich and interesting resource on this version of "The Book of the Dead" with fabulous reproductions of the papyri
This is book is a wonderful piece to just look at.The plates of the papyri are gorgeous and are able to hold one in an almost trancelike state just looking into them.However, the texts of the papyri are not easily understood.So, this book is also amazingly helpful by the way it is put together for those of us who are non-specialists.
Hymns for the Living; "Rise up, O. Pepi. You have not died !"

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Subjects:  1. Ancient - Egypt    2. Antiquities & Archaeology    3. Future life    4. History    5. History: World    6. Incantations, Egyptian    7. Reincarnation    8. Religion - World Religions    9. Ancient Egypt    10. Ancient Egyptian religion    11. Egyptian archaeology    12. History / Ancient / Egypt    13. History of art: BCE to c 500 CE, ancient & classical world   

Reviews (15)

richcontent,easy to read
The Sumerians is a very interesting book about ancient Mesopotamia andSumerian civilisation.
The best source of information on Sumeria
This is one of the best books ever written on any ancient culture. One of the nicest things is extended passages from original source documents. Frequently books written on ancient civilizations only give very brief excerpts. I have given this book as a gift to friends and family and highly recommend it to everyone.

Please take caution with one of the reviews
Do not bother with the nazist review you will find below. L.A. Waddell was a crackpot with no formal training in Assiriology, and a typical old-fashioned german anti-semite, full of aryan theories and praise for ''the great white warriors''. It's very disturbing for a foreigner to see how anti-semitism has poured into almost all fields of learning - even Ancient Near-East studies. And his rather demented theories have been dead for decades, by the way. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Ancient - General    2. Essays & Travelogues    3. General    4. Sociology    5. Sumerians    6. Middle & Near Eastern archaeology    7. Travel / Essays & Travelogues    8. World history: BCE to c 500 CE   

Editorial Review

"Climate change is the ignored player on the historical stage," writes archeologist Brian Fagan. But it shouldn't be, not if we know what's good for us. We can't judge what future climate change will mean unless we know something about its effects in the past: "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." And Fagan's story of the last thousand years, centered on the "Little Ice Age," reminds us of what we could end up repeating: flood, fire, and famine--acts of God exacerbated by acts of man.Read more

Reviews (43)

Much more than just talk about the weather
The effect of climate on history is undoubtedly profound, but beyond the last century most of what we know about climate comes from indirect estimates gleamed by measuring tree rings, ice cores and other rare artifacts that trace changes in temperature or moisture. In "The Little Ice Age" these clues are combined with historical records to build an insightful history of European peoples.
The havoc caused by climate change
This book describes how climate changes over the past millennium affected humans in Europe and nearby.This time period can be divided into the medieval warm period, the little ice age (roughly from 1300-1850), and the period of global warming.And, wow, will you hear of some really bad weather: summers when the rain almost never stops, sand dunes that move so fast people can barely escape, and glaciers you can see advancing daily.
Nothing Changes like the Weather.
Nothing changes like the weather.But sometimes the weather can change a lot -- like the summer of 1300, when the world's temperature suddenly dipped.Norse settlements were wiped out and plague destroyed half the population of Europe.The Thames river froze over in winter, and Hans Brinker could skate the length of Holland.When the "little ice age" ended five hundred years later, the result was another environmental catastrophe that caused the Irish Potato Famine, and millions of deaths.At a time when we are looking for predictions of what future environmental catastrophe might be like, maybe we should be paying more attention to historians. Is our "just in time" civilization robust enough to deal with the surprises of global warming?Fagan delivers modern science and historical details in a delightful package that will give you new respect for mother nature -- and more than a twinge of apprehension about what might lie just over next summer's horizon.-- Auralgo ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Archaeology    2. Europe - General    3. General    4. History    5. History - General History    6. History: World    7. Weather    8. Climatology    9. Europe    10. European archaeology    11. Geology & the lithosphere    12. Modern period, c 1500 onwards    13. World history    14. c 1000 CE to c 1500   

Reviews (7)

Photographs of a Land Familiar and Strange
This is a beautiful set of photographs from the Middle East. It professes that these are the locations where many of the stories in the bible take place. This book is a companion to the TV PBS miniseries that visits the locations where the familiar stories take place.
This book is not for christians perse
I think this is an Ok book, but did not enjoy seeing Jesus being called a prophet. The picture quality was fair but that may have been the print quality. Altogether I regret having bought it.
Perhaps not historically accurate, but a moving experience
The fact that a few of the facts are not quite right doesn't detract from the power of this photographic journey.Thousands of years after the events of the Bible nobody really knows the exact locations of some of the most famouse sites mentioned.But it's certain that the real places in the Bible must have been very much like those experienced by the early Jews and Christians.It's exciting to see these places and imagine what it might have been like. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiquities & Archaeology    2. Archaeology    3. Bible - Commentaries - Old Testament    4. Bible.    5. Biblical Archaeology    6. Biography / Autobiography    7. Essays    8. Feiler, Bruce S.    9. Geography    10. Middle East    11. O.T.    12. Pentateuch    13. Photo Essays    14. Photography    15. Photography Of Specific Subjects    16. Pictorial works    17. Religion    18. Religious    19. Special Interest - Adventure    20. Travel    21. Religion / Bible / General   

Subjects:  1. Archaeology    2. Archaeology / Anthropology    3. Business & Economics    4. Business/Economics    5. Industries - Textile Industry    6. Archaeology by period / region    7. Costume    8. Social Science / Archaeology   

Reviews (11)

Perfect for beginners
We were assigned to tests for my Principle of Archaeology class this semester. This one and the one from Sharer-Ashmore. I bought both of them. The material in both is specific, it covers all the major topics of the discipline and they are great.
Mother-in-law goes back to school
my 87 year old M-i-L is at SFSU this semester. Taking an Archaeology Methods course. The only thing I know about the book is it's damned expensive. Glad I could get it used from Amazon

This is a wonderful textbook.
It is well written, and lavishly illustrated.It is the kind of book that makes you want to get up and start an excavation.If you are interested in the past, and how to figure out the mysteries of the past, then this book is a gold mine.I loved the way that it took complex subjects and made them so easy to understand.Why it was enjoyable.What a wonderful and special book.I really recommend this book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Archaeology    2. Archaeology (General)    3. Archaeology / Anthropology    4. Social Science    5. Sociology    6. Textbooks   

Reviews (24)

Personal attacks are not science
Chapters 4 and 5 in this book are very interesting, a good survey of archaeology in Israel. The preceeding 100 pages amount to little more than scathing personal attacks on other researchers coupled with some brief and basic arcaological theory. Though it is tempting to get into the post-modernism bash, the personal attacks exhibited on those researchers are in poor taste. And I'm not downplaying this, he lists their names and then gives several paragraphs explaning why their biases prevent them from being good scholars. I sincerely hope this isn't reflective of archaeological scholarship in general. From other books I've read (Finkelstein, Mazar, Stern, and Cline), I've noticed that Dever is the only one to resort to personal attacks.
Highly recommended.
While the polemic against the minimalists gets a little excessive at times, I have to say that it is necessary, as they are very vocal these days.There is no need to debate fundamentalists because they've made up their mind already (as Michael Freeman's review shows).
A prize-winner!
Dever deserves a blue ribbon for the most cumbersome title in many years.He should also garner an award for his blistering assessment of "postmodern" historians.While he has contested "minimalist" academics elsewhere, this book is an excellent compendium of the issues and evidence regarding the historical validity of the Hebrew Bible.Although the arena of biblical history is small, the issues dealt with are important.His conclusions will have lasting impact not only in biblical history, but archaeology and other disciplines.Although a serious subject, Dever's piercing wit keeps this book a lively and captivating read.
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Subjects:  1. Ancient - General    2. Antiquities & Archaeology    3. Bible - CriticismInterpretation - Old Testament    4. Bible - Study - General    5. Judaism - History    6. Religion    7. Religion - Biblical Studies    8. Archaeology    9. Biblical studies, criticism & exegesis    10. History of religion    11. Judaism    12. Old Testament   

Reviews (1)

Better than a textbook
Have you ever wondered how pieces of long lost civilizations find a home in museums?Perhaps a dashing hero discovered them while escaping enemies?No.Real archaeologists spend countless hours researching information on a particular subject and only then does on-site excavation begin.Read more

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Physical    2. Archaeology    3. Archaeology (General)    4. Archaeology / Anthropology    5. Physical Anthropology    6. Social Science    7. Sociology    8. Social Science / Anthropology / General   

Editorial Review

When a millionaire adventurer goes in search of the true Mount Sinai, he gets more than he bargained for. Spies, missiles, and secret military installations are just some of the obstacles that Larry Williams and his sidekick Bob Cornuke must confront in their unprecedented journey to find the lost treasures of Moses.In Read more

Reviews (67)

Treasure Now Found
In the book, there are two guys. Their names are Larry Williams, a self made millionaire, and Bob Cornuke, a retired police officer and a former Swat-team member. Larry Williams is also an archaeologist and he hears rumors that the real Mount Sinai (the mountain where god gave Moses the Ten Commandments) is actually in present day Saudia Arabian, on Mount Jabal al Lawz. They want to make sure that they are right, so they actually follow the route on which they believe the Hebrews used to get out of Egypt. After a couple of days, they realize that this must be the way that they took. Every single detail that is in the bible they find. When the get to what they believe is the Reds Sea, They go scuba diving in it. They find the prove that they need and Larry almost gets eaten by a shark.
Bad, bad book
This book is written like a 4th-rate children's adventure story. From the spy story to the lead "characters" furtive journey into Saudi Arabia to their diving expedition - it's all so full of hyperbole and exaggeration that the pictures of the book are needed to convince the reader that the trip happened at all.
Unlikely tale with no research content
I have the hardest time getting rid of books, and every purge of the family library ends up being a long series of painful decisions. Yet I had no trouble giving away this book after the first reading.Read more

Subjects:  1. 1979-    2. Adventure    3. Archaeology    4. Archaeology / Anthropology    5. Biblical Archaeology    6. Espionage    7. History    8. Israel    9. Israeli espionage    10. Middle East    11. Politics and government    12. Social Science    13. Sociology    14. Special Interest - Adventure    15. History / Middle East   

Reviews (4)

Better Than Bird's Eye View
If you want to review the wonder of human kind's imprint on the earth, enjoy this book. If you want to wonder at the uses of the earth's treasures to show creativity and genius spend time with this book. That these architectural remains can be seen from the air in entirety is made possible by Georg Gerster's incredible artistry.

Aerial views
Exceeded expectations. The views were unexpectedly revealing, and the written descriptions of each view were also unexpectedly revealing.

History Come Alives From A Different Perspective.
The photographs in this book are fascinating, as you can see every little detail of the numerous locales and historic places, such as Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, the Tower of Babel, and Antarctica.The terrain around the ancient St. John's Basilica in Turkey where the apostle John was buried in the sixth century and the stone monastry in Ireland amid all the rocks with the vivid green are amazing to see.
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Subjects:  1. Ancient - General    2. Archaeology    3. History    4. History - General History    5. History: World    6. Photoessays & Documentaries    7. Photography    8. Subjects & Themes - Aerial    9. Art & Architecture | Photography    10. History / Ancient / General   

Reviews (6)

Au contraire...
I came searching for this book on Amazon because I checked it out from my library & don't want to give it back.Other opinions seem to indicate that the book is unreadable; however I find it much more readable than the usual fact-filled scholarese that's so dry it can't be choked down into consciousness.I'm just starting on my own Holy Grail quest, so mayhap my opinion should be considered 'beginner', but I've found this book interesting, easy to understand, with a great bibliography for further study.I also appreciate her liberal use of timelines, quotations & citings to break up the monotony of page after page of fact-filled text.
Holy Garil
Save your money. i found this book to be pure fiction & garbage very little research was done by the author. Its an Alice in wonderland tale.
What Do I Win?
Surely, after reading this entire book, I deserve some sort of prize as reward for my efforts.Undoubtedly, reading this book requires an uncommon effort on behalf of the reader.Goodrich employs a writing style even more idiosyncratic and unwieldy than my own.I don't think she is a terrible writer, all the same, and I must praise anyone who is able to get an editor to accept passive sentences.Nonetheless, there are sentences that, no matter how many times I read them, do not seem to be sentences at all, just expressions that often make no sense.On a broader level, many passages in the book either do not seem to relate to the topic at hand, namely the Holy Grail, or else they only make sense if the reader already knows much of the information that the author assumes her readers know (doubtless, she assumes we have already read her books on Arthur, Merlin, etc.).I never really grasped the relevance of Esclamonde in the story, even though the author devotes a lengthy chapter to her.There are some sections, I must say, that are interesting and less arcane, particularly the section about the innately interesting Knights Templar.A remarkable sentence in this section leaped out at me (as no other sentence did, I assure you).When alluding to the tortures inflicted on the Knights Templar in France, she writes "No woman, it is certain, can believe that any man alive would torture another man in such ways."Regrettably, to my morbid tastes, she doesn't really detail these horrible acts.What makes this sentence so interesting is the fact that Goodrich's feminism is clearly evident throughout the whole book.In fact, some sections seem to degenerate into a feminist diatribe bearing almost no relation to the Grail quest.I guess the sentence referenced above means that women are less bestial than men; if not, it sounds like a Victorian sentiment about the daintiness of women.In the end, I can't really recommend this book to the general reader.You just aren't going to find a lot of substantive information about the Holy Grail here, at least not the kind of information I was looking for.Maybe an expert in mediaeval literature would find this book much more stimulating and relevant than I did.If you want to prove to yourself that you are truly an intellectual, though, this may be the best test I can think of for you.Good luck. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Folklore & Mythology - Folklore    3. History - General History    4. Medieval    5. Celtic, Saxon, Germanic & Nordic archaeology    6. European archaeology    7. History / General   

Editorial Review

Fifty years of scientific archaeology in the People's Republic of China (PRC) have redefined early Chinese culture. This handsome volume surveys some of the most spectacular recent finds and their role in reshaping the history of civilization in ancient China. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., teamed up with Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to organize a second extravaganza of unburied treasures, emphasizing discoveries made since their last show in 1974. The more than 175 objects from four historical periods and in numerous media represent important early sites and a diversity of cultures located outside the central Yellow River area--most notably in the south and southwest regions, like the state of Chu. The range is vast, from roughly painted pots about 6,000 years old to lovely clay and marble figures modeling the courtly fashions of 1,000 years ago. The excellent photographs and short texts on individual objects and their excavation sites describe their artistic and historical importance and prompt readers to savor individual artifacts over broad sweeps of history. Linger over a unique pottery basin painted with diagonal lozenges; an over-life-size bronze figure and related heads with strikingly geometrical features; various fantastic creatures in bronze and jade; lacquer bowls and silk garment fragments that have unbelievably survived the centuries; and polychromed Buddhist deities that reveal details like blue mustaches and eyebrows. Read more

Reviews (1)

Beautiful book and a big bargain
The paperback edition is unbelievably priced at less than $20 for 584 pages of high quality paper with every photo printed in full color. The editorial reviews says it all. But I just wanted to add that looking at the diversity of artifacts (many of which look surprisingly strange) in the early periods of China's history further I'm further convinced that the modern Han people came from the merging of many ancient cultures. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Antiquities    2. Antiquities, Prehistoric    3. Archaeology    4. Archaeology / Anthropology    5. Art    6. Asia - China    7. China    8. Civilization    9. Exhibitions    10. History - General    11. National Gallery Of Art - Exhibition Catalogs    12. Prehistoric peoples    13. Ancient World    14. Asian / Middle Eastern history: BCE to c 500 CE    15. Asian archaeology    16. BCE to c 500 CE    17. History of art: BCE to c 500 CE, ancient & classical world    18. History of art: c 500 CE to c 1400    19. Oriental art    20. Social Science / Archaeology    21. c 500 CE to c 1000 CE