BookOdyssey

Σελίδες: 16, Διαστάσεις: 10.5x10.5cm

Discover the real story behind The Dig, streaming now on Netflix, starring Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes The objects unearthed in 1939 from an Anglo-Saxon ship-burial at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, rank among the most splendid treasures in the collection of the British Museum. Bringing together fine craftsmanship from England, Germany, Scandinavia, Alexandria and far Byzantium, the spectacular finds included gold and garnet jewellery, silverware, drinking vessels with silver-gilt fittings, a lyre and a sceptre, as well as the iconic helmet, all deliberately buried in the early seventh century as grave-goods for an important, though unidentified, warrior. The Sutton Hoo ship-burial was one of the most exciting discoveries ever made in British archaeology. This beautifully designed introduction to the treasure details the most significant pieces contained within it and explores the circumstances of its burial, discovery and excavation, as well as its lasting legacy and fame. Σελίδες: 48, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0101, Διαστάσεις: 19x19cm

Discover the real story behind The Dig, streaming now on Netflix, starring Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes A warrior’s face – the strong brows inlaid with red garnets, the nose and mouth gilded and its surface tinned a silvery colour – this is how the Sutton Hoo helmet once appeared to those who saw it. Beautifully crafted and visually stunning, it would have inspired awe. But it was also fully capable of protecting its wearer in battle. This book explains how it was discovered together with other priceless treasures including a ship in the great mound at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, by the archaeologist Basil Brown in the late 1930s. He was employed by the owner of the estate, Mrs Edith Pretty, who generously donated the whole find to the British Museum. After painstaking reconstruction, experts were able to compare this very rare helmet to the few others dating to the same period, and also to speculate for whom it might have been created. Today, some 1,400 years after it was buried, it is the centrepiece for the Sutton Hoo burial exhibit in the British Museum – a remarkable testament to Anglo- Saxon power and artistic skill. Σελίδες: 64, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0417, Διαστάσεις: 14.7x14.7cm

The Rosetta Stone contains a decree written three times in Greek, Demotic and hieroglyphic that provided the key to the mysterious hieroglyphic script of ancient Egypt, and opened up 3,000 years of the country\'s history and culture. This book tells the fascinating story of one of archaeology\'s icons, from its creation in the second century BC, to its discovery in 1799 during Napoleon\'s Egyptian campaign, to the subsequent race to decipher its hieroglyphic text. Undertaken by two brilliant scholars - the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion, and the English physicist Thomas Young - it was the former who eventually succeeded in making the crucial breakthrough. Today the Rosetta Stone stands in the Museum as an enduring symbol of human understanding and communication through the ages. Σελίδες: 64, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0422, Διαστάσεις: 14.7x14.7cm

In this book, readers are shown how dogs fit into ancient Greek society with material from the last 90 years of excavations at the Athenian Agora by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Topics range from how ancient Greeks hunted with dogs and what they considered a proper dog\'s name to the excavation of tender burials in the Agora and the sacrifice of dogs to the gods of the underworld. Mythological dogs like the three-headed Kerberos appear, as do the pawprints that very real dogs left behind more than a thousand years ago. Dozens of illustrations of pottery, sculpture, and excavated remains enliven the text. Anyone curious about dogs in antiquity and how they relate to dogs in the present day will be sure to find interesting material in this portable, affordable text. Σελίδες: 44, Διαστάσεις: 14x14cm

Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumours have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden deep in the Honduran interior. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and warn the legendary city is cursed: to enter it is a death sentence. They call it the Lost City of the Monkey God. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artefacts and an electrifying story of having found the City – but then committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a single-engine plane carrying a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but a lost civilization. To confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, plagues of insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. They emerged from the jungle with proof of the legend... and the curse. They had contracted a horrifying, incurable and sometimes lethal disease. Suspenseful and shocking, filled with history, adventure and dramatic twists of fortune, The Lost City of the Monkey God is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century. Σελίδες: 336, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1201, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ‘Tender, fascinating … Lucid and illuminating’ Robert Macfarlane Funerary rituals show us what people thought about mortality; how they felt about loss; what they believed came next. From Roman cremations and graveside feasts, to deviant burials with heads rearranged, from richly furnished Anglo Saxon graves to the first Christian burial grounds in Wales, Buried provides an alternative history of the first millennium in Britain. As she did with her pre-history of Britain in Ancestors, Professor Alice Roberts combines archaeological finds with cutting-edge DNA research and written history to shed fresh light on how people lived: by examining the stories of the dead.   Σελίδες: 352, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0119, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

Σελίδες: 304, Διαστάσεις: 15.3x15.3cm

Fools. Rebels. Ignorant peasants.That\'s how the Roman world saw the first Christians. Led by fishermen, tax collectors and renegade Pharisees, the first Christians shunned power and welcomed the poor and uneducated. Roman commentators mocked their upside-down values, but the apostle Paul - himself a Roman citizen, and a Pharisee to boot, affirmed that \'God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.\'Its followers were persecuted and its leaders killed, yet this ragged collection of lowly tradesmen, women, slaves - and a smattering of turncoat high-born Jews - created a movement that changed the world. How did this happen? How did the kingdom of fools conquer the mighty empire that was Rome?In this fascinating new biography of the early church, Nick Page sets the biblical accounts alongside the latest historical and archaeological research, exploring how the early Christians lived and worshipped - and just why the Romans found this new branch of the Jewish faith so difficult to comprehend.KINGDOM OF FOOLS is a fresh, challenging, accessible portrait of a movement so radical, so dangerous, so thrillingly different that it outlasted the empire that tried to destroy it and went on to become the driving force of our cultural development - and claims more followers today than ever before in history. Σελίδες: 400, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0611, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

Warrior tells the story of forgotten man, a man whose bones were found in an Anglo-Saxon graveyard at Bamburgh castle in Northumberland. It is the story of a violent time when Britain was defining itself in waves of religious fervour, scattered tribal expansion and terrible bloodshed; it is the story of the fighting class, men apart, defined in life and death by their experiences on the killing field; it is an intricate and riveting narrative of survival and adaptation set in the stunning political and physical landscapes of medieval England. Warrior is a classic of British history, a landmark of popular archaeology, and a must-read for anyone interested in the story of where we\'ve come from. Σελίδες: 304, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

Collective Winner of the 2019 Highland Book Prize Under the ravishing light of an Alaskan sky, objects are spilling from the thawing tundra linking a Yup\'ik village to its hunter-gatherer past. In the shifting sand dunes of a Scottish shoreline, impressively preserved hearths and homes of Neolithic farmers are uncovered. In a grandmother\'s disordered mind, memories surface of a long-ago mining accident and a \'mither who was kind\'. For this luminous new essay collection, acclaimed author Kathleen Jamie visits archaeological sites and mines her own memories - of her grandparents, of youthful travels - to explore what surfaces and what reconnects us to our past. As always she looks to the natural world for her markers and guides. Most movingly, she considers, as her father dies, and her children leave home, the surfacing of an older, less tethered sense of herself. Surfacing offers a profound sense of time passing and an antidote to all that is instant, ephemeral, unrooted. Σελίδες: 240, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0701, Διαστάσεις: 12.8x12.8cm

The Viking ship is one of the most iconic images of the Vikings and the longship in particular has been central to our understanding of the Viking Age. The Vikings used their shipbuilding skills to command the sea and their famous ships permittedthe exploration, colonization and the raids for which they are best known.This book explores the evolution of their sea-going vessels and celebrates this outstanding feature of the Viking Age. In addition to well-known ships such as the spectacular burials from Gokstad and Osebergin southern Norway, The Viking Ship features the newly-conserved longship Roskilde 6 from Denmark. Measuring over 37 metres, this is the longest Viking ship to have been discovered to date.From Viking Age coins, brooches and graffiti, to the use of the Viking ship on contemporary banknotes, labelling and logos as a symbol of national and cultural identity, this book includes a surprising range of objects that have helped to shape our understanding of the Vikings and their ships.With over 50 illustrations. Σελίδες: 96, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0401, Διαστάσεις: 17x17cm

Winner of the 2024 Richard Jefferies Award for nature writing Shortlisted for the 2024 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Conservation A Times Science Book of the Year ‘Sophie writes fantastically, chronicling the most important issues facing nature conservationists today.’ Chris Packham For thousands of years, humans have been the architects of the natural world. Our activities have permanently altered the environment – for good and for bad. In Nature’s Ghosts, award-winning journalist Sophie Yeo examines how the planet would have looked before humans scrubbed away its diversity: from landscapes carved out by megafauna to the primeval forests that emerged following the last Ice Age, and from the eagle-haunted skies of the Dark Ages to the flower-decked farms of more recent centuries. Uncovering the stories of the people who have helped to shape the landscape, she seeks out their footprints even where it seems there are none to be found. And she explores the timeworn knowledge that can help to fix our broken relationship with the earth. Along the way, Sophie encounters the environmental detectives – archaeological, cultural and ecological – reconstructing, in stunning detail, the landscapes we have lost. Today, the natural world is more vulnerable than ever; the footprints of humanity heavier than they have ever been. But, as this urgent book argues, from the ghosts of the past, we may learn how to build a more wild and ancient future. Σελίδες: 320, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

A beautifully produced account of the history and importance of Hadrian\'s Wall, by a bestselling author and expert on Ancient Rome. Located at the far-flung and wild edge of the Roman Empire, Hadrian\'s Wall was constructed by Emperor Hadrian in the 120s AD. Vast in size and stretching from the east to the west coast of the northern part of Britannia, it is the largest monument left by the Roman empire – all the more striking because it lies so far from Rome. Today, it is one of the most visited heritage sites in the country.Yet the story of the Wall is far more than the development of a line of fortifications and the defence of a troublesome imperial frontier. Generation after generation of soldiers served there, with their families as well as traders and other foreign and local civilians in and around the army bases. The glimpses of this vibrant, multinational community in Adrian Goldsworthy\'s masterly book bring the bare stones to life.Goldsworthy also considers why and how the wall was built, and discusses the fascinating history, afterlife and archaeology of this unique ancient monument. Σελίδες: 192, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0110, Διαστάσεις: 12.8x12.8cm

The bestselling author of The King in the North turns his attention to the obscure era of British history known as \'the age of Arthur\'.\'Not just a valuable book, but a distinctive one as well\' Tom Holland, Sunday Times\'An accessible and illuminating book\' Gerard de Groot, The Times\'A fascinating picture of Britain\'s new-found independence\' This EnglandSomewhere between the departure of the Roman legions in the early fifth century and the arrival of Augustine\'s Christian mission at the end of the sixth, the kingdoms of Early Medieval Britain were formed. But by whom? And out of what?The First Kingdom is a skilfully wrought investigation of this mysterious epoch, synthesizing archaeological research carried out over the last forty years to tease out reality from the myth. Max Adams presents an image of post-Roman Britain whose resolution is high enough to show the emergence of distinct political structures in the sixth century – polities that survive long enough to be embedded in the medieval landscape, recorded in the lines of river, road and watershed, and memorialized in place names. Σελίδες: 512, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0201, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

Stonehenge is woven into the earliest Arthurian legends and has been analysed by everyone from archaeologists, to town planners, to the Druids who have made it their spiritual home. By refusing to adopt one theoretical position, Rosemary Hill provides the most wide-ranging and expansive history of the megalithic structure to date, from its creation in 3000 BC to the threat of the thunderous main roads that flank it today. Σελίδες: 256, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

When archaeologist John Henry Phillips volunteered with a charity that took D-Day veterans back to Normandy, due to an administrative error he found himself without a hotel room and reliant on the generosity of one of the veterans who had a spare bed. That veteran was Patrick Thomas - and it was an encounter that would change both their lives forever.Patrick\'s landing craft, LCH 185, had led the first wave into Sword Beach on D-Day, and stayed off Normandy until the 25th June when an acoustic mine sent it to the seabed along with most of the crew. His story transfixed John, and the resulting search for the shipwreck was to consume him.Jumping back and forwards in time, between vivid descriptions of the final days on board LCH 185 and John\'s thrilling search to find the shipwreck, The Search is an emotional story of a devastating time in history, an unlikely, life-changing friendship and a quest to honour a wartime home and family lost over seventy-five years ago. Σελίδες: 336, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0312, Διαστάσεις: 12.6x12.6cm

THE PERFECT READ FOR TROUBLED TIMESFrom the bestselling author of The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places comes this inspiring and beautifully written meditation on the wisdom inherited from our ancestors.For all we have gained in the modern world, simple peace of mind is hard to find. In a time that is increasingly fraught with complexity and conflict, we are told that our wellbeing relies on remaining as present as possible. But what if the key to being present lies in the past? In Wisdom of the Ancients, Neil Oliver takes us back in time, to grab hold of the ideas buried in forgotten cultures and early civilizations. From Laetoli footprints in Tanzania to Keralan rituals, stone circles and cave paintings, Oliver takes us on a global journey through antiquity. A master storyteller, drawing on immense knowledge of our ancient past, he distils this wisdom into twelve messages that have endured the test of time, and invites us to consider how these might apply to our lives today. The result is powerful and inspirational, moving and profound. Σελίδες: 304, Διαστάσεις: 12.7x12.7cm

An informative guide to the relationship between humans and cats in the ancient Egyptian world. Cats can be seen in ancient Egyptian homes, temples and adorning the heads of their gods. Cats in Egypt were probably domesticated by around 4,000 BC from wild ancestors. Over the following centuries, they became popular household pets. In this book, Dr Malek draws on a vast range of artistic and written sources to show how cats became one of the most widely esteemed and revered animals in Egypt. An ideal gift for any fan of ancient Egyptian culture. Σελίδες: 144, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1006, Διαστάσεις: 18.9x18.9cm

\'Richardson writes beautifully about his return to the land, about listening to the soil and about understanding the ancient world.\' - The Spectator Each new field is hope, each old one reality.There are things below the surface that pull people together in a shared love of history, landscape and the hope that, this time, something incredible will be unearthed.When a travel writer is stuck on home soil in the middle of a pandemic he tries his hand at metal detecting - and is instantly addicted. This all-consuming hobby takes him around the country, back through history and deep into the psyches(his own included) of those hooked on \'happy bleeps\'.The Accidental Detectorist is a big-hearted dig into a pastime sometimes mocked but always enticing.***When locked-down travel writer Nigel Richardson is looking for a travel story close to his country cottage he turns to a leading metal detectorist with an infectious passion for the hobby. Before he knows it the mysteries of the fields are leading him on, into a world that casts the history of these isles and its people in an intriguing new light.Sifting Britain\'s soil from Portsmouth to Edinburgh, Nigel yearns to lose his detectorist\'s virginity by finding a \'hammered\' coin - while learning that the search for treasure comes with a serious responsibility to our common heritage. As he immerses himself further in the world of metal detecting, exposing the shady activities of \'nighthawks\', attending rallies and making lifelong friends, a change comes over him. This country beneath his feet, these people who scour it for clues and tokens - they are the treasure he\'s been looking for. Σελίδες: 304, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1031, Διαστάσεις: 12.4x12.4cm

An invigorating journey through Britain\'s prehistoric landscape, and an insight into the lives of its inhabitants. \'Highly compelling\' Spectator, Books of the Year \'An evocative foray into the prehistoric past\' BBC Countryfile Magazine \'Vividly relating what life was like in pre-Roman Britain\' Choice Magazine \'Makes life in Britain BC often sound rather more appealing than the frenetic and anxious 21st century!\' Daily Mail In Scenes from Prehistoric Life, the distinguished archaeologist Francis Pryor paints a vivid picture of British and Irish prehistory, from the Old Stone Age (about one million years ago) to the arrival of the Romans in AD 43, in a sequence of fifteen profiles of ancient landscapes. Whether writing about the early human family who trod the estuarine muds of Happisburgh in Norfolk c.900,000 BC, the craftsmen who built a wooden trackway in the Somerset Levels early in the fourth millennium BC, or the Iron Age denizens of Britain\'s first towns, Pryor uses excavations and surveys to uncover the daily routines of our ancient ancestors. By revealing how our prehistoric forebears coped with both simple practical problems and more existential challenges, Francis Pryor offers remarkable insights into the long and unrecorded centuries of our early history, and a convincing, well-attested and movingly human portrait of prehistoric life as it was really lived. Σελίδες: 368, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1101, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERAn awe-inspiring portrait of the mysterious world beneath the waves, and the men and women who seek to uncover its secrets.______________________________________________\'Masterful and mesmerizing . . . an irresistible mix of splendid scholarship, heart-stopping adventure writing, and vivid, visceral prose.\' Sy Montgomery, author of Soul of an Octopus \'Fantastical and forbidding\' Washington Post \'A fascinating history\' Time\'Casey’s descriptions of the shimmeringly strange life teeming below the waves capture her wonder and ravishment in prose that morphs into poetry . . . Entralling\' Boston Globe________________________________________For all of human history, the deep ocean has been a source of fear and fascination, an unknowable realm that evokes a singular, compelling question: what’s down there? But now cutting-edge technologies are allowing scientists and explorers to discover this strange and exotic underworld: a place of soaring mountains, smouldering volcanoes and valleys 7,000 feet deeper than Everest is high. A realm long thought to be devoid of life is, in fact, a vibrant new world, home to pink gelatinous predators and shimmering creatures a hundred feet long, creatures that breathe iron and communicate through their skin, ancient animals with glass skeletons and sharks that live for half a millennium.In The Underworld, Susan Casey traverses the globe, joining scientists and explorers on dives to the deepest places on the planet. She interviews the marine geologists, marine biologists, and oceanographers as they uncover this vast unseen realm. And she discovers the mind-blowing complexity and ecological importance of the abyssal ocean and the quadrillions of creatures who live in its depths. Σελίδες: 384, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

\'Restless, poetic, strange ... and the territory it describes deserves nothing less\' Observer\'Glittering and energetic\' Country LifeYorkshire is \'a continent unto itself\', a region where mountain, plain, coast, downs, fen and heath lie close. By weaving history, family stories, travelogue and ecology, Richard Morris reveals how Yorkshire took shape as a landscape and in literature, legend and popular regard. The result is a fascinating and wide-ranging meditation on Yorkshire and Yorkshireness, told through the prism of the region\'s most extraordinary people and places. Σελίδες: 304, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0404, Διαστάσεις: 12.8x12.8cm

A stonemason\'s story of the building of Britain: part archaeological history, part deeply personal insight into an ancient craft. In his thirty-year career, stonemason Andrew Ziminski has worked on many of our greatest monuments. From Neolithic monoliths to Roman baths and temples, from the tower of Salisbury Cathedral to the engine houses, mills and aqueducts of the Industrial Revolution and beyond, The Stonemason is his very personal history of how Britain was built - from the inside out. Stone by different stone, culture by different culture, Andrew Ziminski (with his faithful whippet in tow) takes us on an unforgettable journey by river, road and sea through our countryside showing how the making of Britain\'s buildings offers an unexpected and new version of our island story.\'My school history lessons were focused around flat pages of facts, events and royal personalities, but for me it was the material aspects of the past, the tangible remnants left behind that were thrilling, and that it was these buildings and places, and learning how they worked, that really brought the past alive.\' Σελίδες: 336, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0914, Διαστάσεις: 12.8x12.8cm

A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR ‘A diligent historian and a superb writer’ THE TIMES A gripping new history of the making of England as a nation. In December 1642, during the Civil War, Parliamentarian troops stormed Winchester Cathedral and smashed ten beautifully decorated wooden chests to the ground, using the bones inside as missiles to shatter the cathedral’s stained glass windows. Afterwards, the clergy scrambled to collect the scattered remains: the bones of ancient kings, bishops and one formidable queen. Bestselling historian Cat Jarman builds on the ground-breaking work of forensic archaeologists to lead us through more than a millennium of history. Alongside the cutting-edge investigation to unlock the bones\' secrets, this is a thrilling and sometimes tragic tale. It tells the story of both the seekers and the sought, of those who protected the bones and those who spurned them. Σελίδες: 384, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER & THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF 2021 \'Astonishing and compelling\' Bernard Cornwell ‘This superb book is like a classical symphony, perfectly composed and exquisitely performed’ THE TIMES Books of the Year Follow bioarchaeologist Cat Jarman – and the cutting-edge forensic techniques central to her research – as she uncovers epic stories of the Viking age and follows a small ‘Carnelian’ bead found in a Viking grave in Derbyshire to its origins thousands of miles to the east in Gujarat. ‘This superb book is like a classical symphony, perfectly composed and exquisitely performed’ THE TIMES Books of the Year Dr Cat Jarman is a bioarchaeologist, specialising in forensic techniques to research the paths of Vikings who came to rest in British soil. By examining teeth that are now over one thousand years old, she can determine childhood diet, and thereby where a person was likely born. With radiocarbon dating, she can ascertain a death date down to the range of a few years. And her research offers new visions of the likely roles of women and children in Viking culture. In 2017, a carnelian bead came into her temporary possession. River Kings sees her trace its path back to eighth-century Baghdad and India, discovering along the way that the Vikings’ route was far more varied than we might think, that with them came people from the Middle East, not just Scandinavia, and that the reason for this unexpected integration between the Eastern and Western worlds may well have been a slave trade running through the Silk Road, and all the way to Britain. Told as a riveting story of the Vikings and the methods we use to understand them, this is a major reassessment of the fierce, often-mythologised voyagers of the north, and of the global medieval world as we know it. Σελίδες: 352, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

To secure a comfortable afterlife, ancient Egyptians built fortress-like tombs and filled them with precious goods, a practice that generated staggering quantities of artefacts over the course of many millennia, but one which has also drawn thieves and tomb-raiders to Egypt since antiquity. Drawing on modern scholarship, reportage and period sources, this book tracks the history of treasure-seekers in Egypt and the social contexts in which they operated, revealing striking continuities throughout time. Readers will recognize the foibles of today’s politicians and con artists, the perils of materialism, and the cycles of public compliance and dissent in the face of injustice. In describing an age-old pursuit and its timeless motivations, A Short History of Tomb-Raiding shows how much we have in common with our Bronze Age ancestors. Σελίδες: 304, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

\'A beautiful, beautiful book . . . archaeology is changing so much about the way we view the so-called Dark Ages … [Williams] is just brilliant at bringing them to light\' Rory Stewart on The Rest is Politics From the bestselling author of Viking Britain, a new epic history of our forgotten past. This is the world of Arthur and Urien; of the Picts and Britons and Saxon migration; of magic and war, myth and miracle. In Lost Realms Thomas Williams uncovers the forgotten origins and untimely demise of Britain’s ancient kingdoms: lands that hover in the twilight between history and fable, whose stories hum with gods and miracles, with giants and battles and ruin. Why did some realms – like Wessex, Northumbria and Gwynedd – prosper while others fell? And how did their communities adapt to the catastrophic changes of their age? Drawing on Britain ’ s ancient landscape and bringing together new archaeological revelations with the few precious fragments of surviving written sources, Williams spectacularly rebuilds a lost past. Σελίδες: 432, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

War, revolution, treason and love – the thrilling tale of Sir John of Gaunt brought to life by medieval history\'s rising star. ‘The Red Prince announces Helen Carr as one of the most exciting new voices in narrative history.’ Dan Jones Son of Edward III, brother to the Black Prince, father to Henry IV and the sire of all the Tudors. Always close to the English throne, John of Gaunt left a complex legacy. Too rich, too powerful, too haughty… did he have his eye on his nephew’s throne? Why was he such a focus of hate in the Peasants’ Revolt? In examining the life of a pivotal medieval figure, Helen Carr paints a revealing portrait of a man who held the levers of power on the English and European stage, passionately upheld chivalric values, pressed for the Bible to be translated into English, patronised the arts, ran huge risks to pursue the woman he loved… and, according to Shakespeare, gave the most beautiful of all speeches on England. *** A TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2021. SHORTLISTED FOR THE ELIZABETH LONGFORD PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY ‘In Shakespeare’s Richard II, John of Gaunt gives the “this scepter’d isle… this England” speech. This vivid history brings to life his princely ambitions and passion.’ The Times, Best Books of 2021 ‘Superb, gripping and fascinating, here is John of Gaunt and a cast of kings, killers and queens brought blazingly, sensitively and swashbucklingly to life. An outstanding debut.’ Simon Sebag Montefiore ‘Helen Carr is one of the most exciting and talented young historians out there. She has a passion for medieval history which is infectious and is always energetic and engaging, whether on the printed page or the screen.’ Dan Snow Σελίδες: 304, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0503, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

An extraordinary exploration of the ancestry of Britain through seven burial sites. By using new advances in genetics and taking us through important archaeological discoveries, Professor Alice Roberts helps us better understand life today.‘This is a terrific, timely and transporting book - taking us heart, body and mind beyond history, to the fascinating truth of the prehistoric past and the present’ Bettany Hughes We often think of Britain springing from nowhere with the arrival of the Romans. But in Ancestors, pre-eminent archaeologist, broadcaster and academic Professor Alice Roberts explores what we can learn about the very earliest Britons, from burial sites and by using new technology to analyse ancient DNA. Told through seven fascinating burial sites, this groundbreaking prehistory of Britain teaches us more about ourselves and our history: how people came and went and how we came to be on this island. It explores forgotten journeys and memories of migrations long ago, written into genes and preserved in the ground for thousands of years. This is a book about belonging: about walking in ancient places, in the footsteps of the ancestors. It explores our interconnected global ancestry, and the human experience that binds us all together. It’s about reaching back in time, to find ourselves, and our place in the world.PRE-ORDER CRYPT, THE FINAL BOOK IN ALICE ROBERTS\' BRILLIANT TRILOGY – OUT FEBRUARY 2024.  Σελίδες: 448, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0203, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

\'The who, what, where, when and how of human evolution, from one of the world\'s experts on the dating of prehistoric fossils\' Steve Brusatte, author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs \'Fascinating and entertaining. If you read one book on human origins, this should be it\' Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules - For Now 50,000 years ago, we were not the only species of human in the world. There were at least four others, including the Neanderthals, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonesis and the Denisovans. At the forefront of the latter\'s ground-breaking discovery was Oxford Professor Tom Higham.In The World Before Us, he explains the scientific and technological advancements - in radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA, for example - that allowed each of these discoveries to be made, enabling us to be more accurate in our predictions about not just how long ago these other humans lived, but how they lived, interacted and live on in our genes today. This is the story of us, told for the first time with its full cast of characters. \'Exciting\' David Abulafia, author of The Boundless Sea \'Remarkable\' Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred \'Thrilling\' David Reich, author of Who We Are and How We Got Here \'Brilliant\' Chris Gosden, author of The History of Magic\'Gripping and fun\' Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion\'Essential\' Barry Cunliffe, author of The Scythians\'Profoundly entertaining\' Brian Fagan, author of World Prehistory Σελίδες: 336, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

Rome as you’ve never seen it before – brazenly unconventional, badly behaved and ever so feminine. ‘Hugely entertaining and illuminating’ —Elodie Harper, author of The Wolf Den A WATERSTONES BEST HISTORY BOOK OF 2023 Here’s how the history of the Roman Empire usually goes… We kick off with Romulus murdering his brother, go on to Brutus overthrowing Tarquin, bounce through an appallingly tedious list of battles and generals and consuls, before emerging into the political stab-fest of the late Republic. After ‘Et tu, Brute?’, it runs through all the emperors, occasionally nodding to a wife or mother to show how bad things get when women won’t do as they’re told, until Constantine invents Christianity only for Attila the Hun to come and ruin everything. Let’s tear up this script. The history of Rome and its empire is so much more than these ‘Important Things’. In this alternative history, Emma Southon tells another story about the Romans, one that lives through Vestal Virgins and sex workers, business owners and poets, empresses and saints. Discover how entrepreneurial sex worker Hispala Faecenia uncovered a conspiracy of treason, human sacrifice and Bacchic orgies so wild they would make Donna Tartt blush, becoming one of Rome’s unlikeliest heroes.Book yourself a table at the House of Julia Felix and get to know Pompeii’s savviest businesswoman and restauranteur. Indulge in an array of locally sourced delicacies as you take in the wonderful view of Mount Vesuvius… what could possibly go wrong?Join the inimitable Septimia Zenobia, who – after watching a series of incompetent, psychopathic and incompetently psychopathic emperors almost destroy the Empire – did what any of us would do. She declared herself Empress, took over half the Roman Empire and ran it herself. Σελίδες: 416, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

In this acclaimed bestseller, an explorer and Neanderthal hunter takes us on a riveting journey of discovery\'With the style of a poet and imagination of a philosopher, Ludovic Slimak probes the minds of Neanderthals. . . This fun and provocative book is a reminder that we still have a lot to learn about biological intelligence\' Steve BrusatteWhat if we have completely misunderstood who the Neanderthals truly were?For over a century we saw them as inferior to Homo Sapiens. Today, Neanderthals are seen as fully human, different from us only because of their distant cultural traditions. But does the truth lie somewhere else entirely?Neanderthal hunter and paleoanthropologist Ludovic Slimak understands these enigmatic creatures like no one else after studying them for three decades. Taking us on a fascinating archaeological investigation from the Arctic Circle to the deep Mediterranean forests, he traces their steps, deciphering their stories through every single detail they left behind.In this stunning, bold book, he argues that Neanderthals should be understood on their own terms. They had their own history, their own rituals, their own customs. Their own intelligence. A remarkable intelligence, for sure, but an intelligence that may have been very different from ours - although it can still teach us much about ourselves.A thought-provoking detective story, written with wit and verve, The Naked Neanderthal shifts our understanding of deep history - and in the process reveals just how much we have yet to learn. Σελίδες: 208, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

‘Somerville’s infectious enthusiasm and wry humour infuse his journey from the Isle of Lewis to southern England, revealing our rich geological history with vibrant local and natural history’ Observer‘A meticulous exploration of the ground beneath our feet. Glorious’ Katharine Norbury‘A remarkable achievement’ Tom Chesshyre‘His writing is utterly enticing’ Country Walking...............................................................................................................................................The influence Britain’s geology has had on our daily lives is profound. While we may be unaware of it, every aspect of our history has been affected by events that happened ten thousand, a million, or a thousand million years ago.In Walking the Bones of Britain, Christopher Somerville takes a journey of a thousand miles, beginning in the far north, at the three-billion-year-old rocks of the Isle of Lewis, formed when the world was still molten, and travelling south-eastwards to the furthest corner of Essex, where new land is being formed. Crossing bogs, scaling peaks and skirting quarry pits, he unearths the stories bound up in the layers of rock beneath our feet, and examines how they have influenced everything from how we farm to how we build our houses, from the Industrial Revolution to the current climate crisis.Told with characteristic humour and insight, this gripping exploration of the British landscape and its remarkable history cannot fail to change the way you see the world beyond your door.‘Somerville is a walker’s writer’ Nicholas Crane Σελίδες: 432, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023: NATURE AND TRAVELFor thousands of years, our ancestors held a close connection with the landscapes they lived in. Seeking that lost connection, James Canton takes us on a journey across ancient England: from stone monuments to sacred groves, places of pilgrimage and sites of religious worship. Grounded invites us to step away from our modern world, to rekindle the wonder and awe in the places we live in, to discover the history and meaning encoded into the land - if only we take the time to look. Σελίδες: 272, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

Enter a world of ancient secrets, old money, new ambitions and the discovery of priceless treasure in this revelatory new biography. Between November 1922 and spring 1923, a door to the ancient Egyptian world was opened. The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun would be the most astonishing archaeological find of the century, revealing not only the boy pharaoh’s preserved remains, but thousands of finely crafted objects, from the iconic gold mask and coffins to a dagger made from meteorite, chalices, beautiful furniture and even 3000-year-old food and wine. The world’s understanding of Ancient Egyptian civilisation was immeasurably enhanced, and the quantity and richness of the objects in the tomb is still being studied today. Two men were ultimately responsible for the discovery: Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter. It was Lord Carnarvon who held the concession to excavate and whose passion and ability to finance the project allowed the eventual discovery to take place. The Earl and the Pharaoh tells the story of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon. Carnarvon’s life, money and sudden death became front-page news throughout the world following the discovery of the tomb, fuelling rumours that persist today of ‘the curse of the pharaohs’. His beloved home, Highclere Castle, is today best-known as the set of Downton Abbey. Drawing on Highclere Castle’s never-before-plumbed archives, bestselling author Fiona, the Countess of Carnarvon, charts the twists of luck and tragedies that shaped Carnarvon’s life; his restless and enquiring mind that drove him to travel to escape conventional society life in Edwardian Britain. Σελίδες: 400, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm