Showing titles in Archaeology

Mudlarking enthusiast Ted Sandling takes us on a riveting journey along the Thames foreshore and back into the past.

The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon is an exciting story of detection involving legends, expert decipherment of ancient texts, and a vivid description of a little-known civilization. Recognized in ancient times as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the legendary Hanging Garden of Babylon and its location still remains a mystery steeped in shadow and puzzling myths. In this remarkable volume Stephanie Dalley, a world expert on ancient Babylonian language, gathers for the first time all the material on this enigmatic World Wonder.

Metrópolis autenticas, casi siempre desconocidas, desde las que se gestionaron los mayores imperios de la antigüedad. Existen pocos trabajos que nos enseñen cómo eran las grandes metrópolis del mundo antiguo, y muchos menos que nos las recreen y que nos den una imagen total que englobe el urbanismo, la arquitectura, el arte, la política o la religión.

Since the late 1980s the dominant theory of human origins has been that a "cognitive revolution" (c. 50,000 years ago) led to the advent of our species, Homo sapiens. As a result of this revolution our species spread and eventually replaced all existing archaic Homo species, ultimately leading to the superiority of modern humans. Or so we thought. As Clive Finlayson explains, the latest advances in genetics prove that there was significant interbreeding between modern humans and the Neanderthals.

In this heart-pounding adventure, award-winning journalist and best-selling author Howard Blum tells the enthralling story of two modern-day adventurers - Larry Williams, a self-made millionaire and published author from Montana, and his friend Bob Cornuke, a retired policeman and former SWAT team member. Lured by the prospect of finding a fortune in gold, the two men set out to find the true site of Mount Sinai - with the Old Testament as a guide.

On September 1, 2004, three middle-aged buddies set out on one of the last geographic challenges never before attempted in North America: to hike the Comb Ridge in one continuous push. The Comb is an upthrust ridge of sandstone-virtually a mini-mountain range-that stretches almost unbroken for a hundred miles from just east of Kayenta, Arizona, to some ten miles west of Blanding, Utah. To hike the Comb is to run a gauntlet of up-and-down severities, with the precipice lurking on one hand, the fiendishly convoluted bedrock slab on the other-always at a sideways, ankle-wrenching pitch.

In 1999, few people had thought to examine the effects of climate on civilization. Now, due in part to the groundbreaking work of archaeologist Brian Fagan, climate change is a central issue. Revised and updated 10 years after its first publication, Floods, Famines and Emperors remains the definitive account of how the world's best-known climate event had an indelible impact on history.

Sins of the Shovel is a story of adventure and business gone wrong and how archaeologists today grapple with this complex heritage. Through the story of the Hyde Exploring Expedition, practicing archaeologist Rachel Morgan uncovers the uncomfortable links between commodity culture, contemporary ethics, and the broader political forces that perpetuate destructive behavior today. The result is an unsparing and even-handed assessment of American archaeology's sins, past and present, and how the field is working toward atonement.

Using the writings of Cosmas and a wealth of other historical and archaeological evidence from the period, eminent historian G. W. Bowersock carefully reconstructs this fascinating but overlooked chapter in pre-Islamic Arabian history. The flashpoint of the war, Bowersock tells us, occurred when Yusuf, the Jewish king of Himyar, massacred hundreds of Christians living in Najran. The Christian ruler of Ethiopia, Kaleb, urged on by the Byzantine emperor Justin, led a force of 120,000 men across the Red Sea to defeat Yusuf.

El Domingo de Ramos de 1965 cuatro personajes inician un viaje hacia Veracruz y se detienen en Cholula, ciudad de laspirámides aztecas. En el laberinto de sus galerías se internaránlas dos parejas, como en un descenso a los infiernos, que concluirá con una tragedia ritual inesperada. Ficción total en palabras del propio autor, Cambio de piel indaga en el mito del México prehispánico y en el holocausto europeoa través de la memoria de sus protagonistas para decirnos que, en definitiva, todas las violencias son la misma violencia.

Josh Bernstein, host of The History Channel's hit series Digging for The Truth, takes listeners beyond the cameras for an even closer look at his adventures through some of the most intriguing, remote, and physically challenging locations on the planet as he explores the world's greatest ancient mysteries. No location is too dangerous, no terrain too rough, no culture too exotic for explorer and survival expert Josh Bernstein.

Soon after Billy Griffiths joins his first archaeological dig as camp manager and cook, he is hooked. Equipped with a historian’s inquiring mind, he embarks on a journey through time, seeking to understand the extraordinary deep history of the Australian continent. Deep Time Dreaming is the passionate product of that journey. It investigates a twin revolution: the reassertion of Aboriginal identity in the second half of the 20th century and the uncovering of the traces of ancient Australia.

Never before has there been a real discovery where all the physical characteristics of a proposed location matched Plato’s description of Atlantis. Not even the original Santorini hypothesis could sufficiently meet the given criteria.

Wie lebten Frauen in der Stein- und Bronzezeit? Wie waren die Geschlechterverhältnisse in der Zeit vor Erfindung der Schrift? Bis vor Kurzem waren alle Antworten auf diese Fragen mehr oder weniger Spekulation. Doch seit DNA-Analysen für die prähistorische Forschung zur Verfügung stehen, hat sich dies geändert. Die Wissenschaftsjournalistin Karin Bojs trägt die neuesten Ergebnisse zusammen und fragt, wann und warum das Patriarchat entstand. Die Prähistorikerin Marija Gimbutas hatte seit den 50er Jahren eine Theorie entwickelt, nach der in „Alteuropa“ eher friedliche, matrilineare Gesellschaften existiert hätten.

Adam Ford is an archaeologist. Not only has he been on expeditions to unlock the mysteries of the past in the Caribbean, British Isles, Jordan, Syria, Israel, United Arab Emirates and Australia, he's also had heat stroke, hypothermia, and dysentery; been chased by camel spiders; been walked on by scorpions; and been pestered by bugs big enough to ride.

Misinformation and myths have attached themselves to the Egyptian pyramids since ancient Greece and Rome. While many Americans believe that the pyramids were built by aliens, archaeologists understand that the Giza pyramids were built by the pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty around 2450 BCE. So why is there such a disconnect between scholarly opinion and the popular view of Egypt? Jason Colavito takes us back to Late Antique Egypt, where the replacement of polytheism with Christianity gave rise to local efforts to rewrite the stories of Egyptian history in the image of the Bible.

A vibrant portrait of a lost world, A History of Ancient Rome in 100 Lives reveals the mightiest civilization of antiquity through the eyes of one hundred of its citizens. The book gives a voice not just to Rome's most famous generals and rulers, such as Caesar and Caligula, but also to its builders, sculptors, poets, historians, gladiators, shepherds, enslaved people, and courtesans.

What was life like for Shakespeare's first audiences? In a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, how did Elizabethan play-goers make sense of their changing world? What did the plays mean to the public when they were first performed? In this fascinating series, Neil MacGregor attempts to answer these questions by examining 20 objects from that turbulent period. There are grand objects such as a communion chalice, a Venetian goblet, and Dr Dee's mirror, as well as everyday items.

When did the human species turn against the planet that we depend on for survival? Human industry and consumption of resources have altered the climate, polluted the water and soil, destroyed ecosystems, and rendered many species extinct, vastly increasing the likelihood of an ecological catastrophe. How did humankind come to rule nature to such an extent? To regard the planet's resources and creatures as ours for the taking? To find ourselves on a seemingly relentless path toward ecocide?

During the period between about AD 1000 and 1425, a thriving Native American culture known to archaeologists as the Middle Cumberland Mississippian lived along the Cumberland River and its tributaries in today’s Davidson County. This book is the first public-facing effort by legitimate archaeologists to articulate the history of what happened here before Nashville happened.