(New York: Checkmark Books, 2001) 216 pp., $35 (hardback)
This attractively illustrated volume surveys the influence of archaeology on our understanding of ages and civilizations past. Romer, the author of numerous popular books and television series, has organized the book according to the objects that have motivated the archaeological quest: treasure, knowledge of the origins of humankind and civilization, “scientific” proof of scripture and other ancient writings and finally (and ominously), the establishment of a “pedigree” of modern nations and cultures.
Starting with the 18th-century excavation of the remains of Herculaneum, which along with Pompeii was devastated some 1,900 years ago by the catastrophic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, Romer traces the development of the “art and craft and science” of archaeology, primarily in the Near East but also in the jungles of South and Central America. He does not dwell on the technical, choosing instead to focus on the spectacular finds that reshaped modern conceptions of the ancient world.
The Atlas of World Archaeology
Edited by Paul G. Bahn
(New York: Checkmark Books, 2000) 208 pp., $39.95 (hardback)
“Back-looking curiositie,” observed the 16th-century English antiquarian William Camden, “seems to be one of the features that characterize human kind and separate us from other animals.” Paul Bahn amply nourishes that “curiositie” with 75 uncluttered, informative maps supplementing 85 brief essays on focused topics. The book spans human history from its origins to post-Ice Age revolutions in farming, city/state development and early writing and carries on through recent centuries in all the regions of the world. Timelines from different areas and 200 exquisite photographs of artifacts and sites accompany the text. Sprinkled throughout are tantalizing sidebars on subjects ranging from mammoth-bone huts of late Ice Age people in Ukraine to underwater excavation of a Bronze Age shipwreck at Ulu Burun off the Turkish coast, and from the Egyptian stepped-pyramid at Saqqara to Palenque—a palace, temple and burial city of sixth-century C.E. Mayans.
The History of Archaeology
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