BookOdyssey

An updated edition of this acclaimed book, now with a new preface and published to tie in with the bicentenary of Champollion’s breakthrough in 1822. Cracking the Egyptian Code is the first biography in English of Jean-François Champollion, the impoverished, arrogant and brilliant child of the French Revolution who made the vital breakthrough in deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs. This account charts Champollion’s dramatic life and achievements: by turns a teenage professor, a supporter of Napoleon, an exile, a fanatical decipherer and a curator at the Louvre, he lived life to the full but drove himself into an early grave. Andrew Robinson’s full-blooded account brings the man, his setbacks and his ultimate triumphs vividly to life. Σελίδες: 304, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1030, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

A gripping account of 200 years of archaeological research, excavation and thought, told through the life stories of 70 of the world’s greatest pioneers and practitioners. Brian Fagan has assembled a team of some of the world’s greatest living archaeologists to write knowledgeably and entertainingly about their distinguished predecessors. Full of fascinating anecdotes, personal accounts and unexpected insights, this comprehensively illustrated book encompasses more than two centuries of research and excavation round the globe. Controversial figures such as Heinrich Schliemann of Troy fame, and Aurel Stein, plunderer of ancient manuscripts from Central Asia, are reassessed. Little-known pioneers – for example, Max Uhle in Peru and Li Chi in China – are set beside the giants in the field: Lepsius, Mariette and Carter in Egypt; Koldewey, Dörpfeld and Woolley in the Near East; Stephens and Catherwood, discoverers of the Maya of Mexico; and Louis and Mary Leakey, who transformed knowledge of our African ancestry. Other indomitable women here include Gertrude Bell, explorer of Arabia and Iraq, Kathleen Kenyon, the excavator of Jericho, and the script-decipherer Tatiana Proskouriakoff. Σελίδες: 320, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1207, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

The political leaders, writers, artists and philosophers of ancient Greece turned a small group of city states into a pan-Mediterranean civilization, whose legacy can be found everywhere today. But who were these people, what do we know of their lives and how did they interact with one another? In this original new approach to telling the Greek story, David Stuttard weaves together the lives of fifty movers and shakers of the Greek world into a continuous, chronologically organized narrative, from the early tyrant rulers Peisistratus and Polycrates, through the stirrings of democracy under Cleisthenes to the rise of Macedon under Philip II and Alexander the Great and the eventual decline of the Greek world as Rome rose.With 29 illustrations, 25 in colour Σελίδες: 304, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0325, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

\'Man perishes; his corpse turns to dust; all his relatives pass away. But writings make him remembered\'In ancient Egypt, words had magical power. Inscribed on tombs and temple walls, coffins and statues, or inked onto papyri, hieroglyphs give us a unique insight into the life of the Egyptian mind. Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson has freshly translated a rich and diverse range of ancient Egyptian writings into modern English, including tales of shipwreck and wonder, obelisk inscriptions, mortuary spells, funeral hymns, songs, satires and advice on life from a pharaoh to his son. Spanning over two millennia, this is the essential guide to a complex, sophisticated culture.Translated with an Introduction by Toby Wilkinson Σελίδες: 384, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

The links between archaeology and the Bible have fascinated generations of archaeologists and biblical scholars who seek documentation of events narrated in the Bible. The British Museum\'s collections include numerous inscribed objects, scripts and pictorial reliefs which provide such evidence. There is, for example, a Babylonian clay tablet which records Nebuchadnezzar\'s siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC, as narrated in the book of Jeremiah. For this book the author has selected over seventy such \'documents\', mainly from Western Asia, with some examples included from Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor, dating from the period of the Patriarchs to the New Testament times, c. 2000 BC to c. AD 100. He transliterates and translates the ancient texts, which include Cuneiform, Aramaic and Hebrew, and discusses the contribution they make to our knowledge of the culture and history of biblical times. Each object is illustrated in black and white. Σελίδες: 136, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1012, Διαστάσεις: 18.9x18.9cm

Σελίδες: 312, Έτος Έκδοσης: 2015, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

An entirely fresh and accessible approach to reading ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs by a proven expert, this step-by-step introduction assumes no previous knowledge of grammar or ancient languages, but guides readers through the inscriptions, from simple to more complex, supported by full explanations and translations. Readers\' will see their knowledge and skills grow as Bill Manley clearly explains the mysteries of hieroglyphs without jargon or technical terms, guiding the reader step by step through 27 real-life, unaltered texts from stelae, tombs and portable objects. Specially commissioned line drawings present engaging texts clearly and elegantly, while fact boxes bring to life images of monuments of high officials and kings, giving glimpses of ancient Egyptian society and beliefs. This guide is essential reading for anyone interested in Ancient Egypt, hieroglyphs or ancient languages and contains all the knowledge you need in order to start deciphering hieroglyphic texts for yourself. Σελίδες: 160, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0301, Διαστάσεις: 18.6x18.6cm

Σελίδες: 416, Έτος Έκδοσης: 2013, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

Farmers once knew how to make a living fence and fed their flocks on tree-branch hay. Rural people knew how to prune hazel to foster abundance: both of edible nuts and of straight, strong, flexible rods for bridges, walls and baskets. Townspeople cut beeches to make charcoal to fuel ironworks. Shipwrights shaped oaks to make hulls. In order tp prosper communities cut their trees so they would sprout again. Pruning the trees didn’t destroy them. Rather, it created healthy, sustainable and diverse woodlands. From these woods came the poetic landscapes of Shakespeare’s England and of ancient Japan. The trees lived longer. William Bryant Logan travels from the English fens to Spain, California and Japan to rediscover and celebrate what was once a common and practical ecology—finding hope that humans may again learn what the persistence and generosity of trees can teach. Σελίδες: 352, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0615, Διαστάσεις: 14x14cm

In Four Lost Cities, acclaimed science journalist Annalee Newitz takes readers on an entertaining and mind-bending adventure into the deep history of urban life. Investigating across the centuries and around the world, Newitz explores the rise and fall of four ancient cities, each the centre of a sophisticated civilisation: the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey, the Roman town of Pompeii on Italy’s southern coast, the medieval megacity of Angkor in Cambodia and the indigenous American metropolis Cahokia, which stood beside the Mississippi River where East St. Louis is today. Newitz travels to all four sites and investigates the cutting-edge research in archaeology, revealing the mix of environmental changes and political turmoil that doomed these ancient settlements. Tracing the early development of urban planning, Newitz also introduces us to the often-anonymous workers—slaves, women, immigrants and manual labourers—who built these cities and created monuments that lasted millennia. Four Lost Cities is a journey into the forgotten past but, foreseeing a future in which the majority of people on Earth will be living in cities. It may also reveal something of our own fate. Σελίδες: 320, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0111, Διαστάσεις: 14x14cm

New in paperback, this is a fully illustrated volume on the discovery, meaning and significance of all the Dead Sea Scrolls by acknowledged experts in the field. Offering intriguing historical and religious insights into the period of authorship, from Babylon to Bar Kokhba, and expert interpretation of the manuscripts using palaeography, Carbon-14 dating and computer reconstructions, the book also Includes factfiles, tables, reconstructions, scroll photographs and a guide to where to see the scrolls today. Σελίδες: 216, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0527, Διαστάσεις: 19.2x19.2cm

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE AND THE HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZE A journey told through stories and songs into Doggerland, the ancient region that once joined the east coast of England to HollandTime Song tells of the creation, the existence and the loss of a country now called Doggerland, a huge and fertile area that once connected the entire east coast of England with mainland Europe, until it was finally submerged by rising sea levels around 5000 BC.Julia Blackburn mixes fragments from her own life with a series of eighteen \'songs\' and all sorts of stories about the places and the people she meets in her quest to get closer to an understanding of this vanished land. She sees the footprints of early humans fossilised in the soft mud of an estuary alongside the scattered pockmarks made by rain falling eight thousand years ago. She visits a cave where the remnants of a Neanderthal meal have turned to stone. In Denmark she sits beside Tollund Man who, despite having lain in a peat bog since the start of the Bronze Age, seems to be about to wake from a dream...\'This book is a wonder\' Adam Nicolson, Spectator\'A clairvoyant and poetic conversation with the past\' Antony Gormley Σελίδες: 304, Διαστάσεις: 16.4x16.4cm

This fascinating book continues the story begun in the bestselling and critically acclaimed book The Mind in the Cave. Drawing on the latest research and recent discoveries, the authors skilfully link material on human consciousness, imagery and belief systems to propose provocative new theories about the causes of an ancient revolution in cosmology, the origins of social complexity and even the drive behind the domestication of plants and animals. In doing so they create a fascinating neurological bridge to the mysterious thought-lives of the past and reveal the essence of a momentous period in human history. Σελίδες: 320, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1008, Διαστάσεις: 12.8x12.8cm

A penetrating and lucid history of the best-known and most spectacular monument to the Roman Empire in Britain. Taking into account new research findings about the building of the Wall, Breeze and Dobson include fascinating details about the Roman army, its religion and daily bureaucratic life. A selection of photos, maps and diagrams help make this a book for both the expert and the layman, being simultaneously erudite and unusually accessible. Σελίδες: 384, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

Acclaimed science writer Heather Pringle uncovers the true story of the scientists and archaeologists Heinrich Himmler deployed to find proof for his theories of a prehistoric Aryan master race. What happens when science falls prey to a political agenda? Pre-history, according to Heinrich Himmler, must be re-written. Himmler, the chief of the SS and architect of the Nazi network of death camps, was obsessed with re-writing history. He was convinced that archaeologists had long ignored the great accomplishments of ancient Germanic peoples. Himmler believed that Germany\'s ancestors – the tall, blue-eyed, blond-haired Aryans – had evolved not in the savannahs of Africa with the rest of humanity, but in the icy barrens of the Arctic. There, refined and distilled by natural selection in a bitter land, they had become an invincible master race. But some 12,000 years ago, theorized Himmler, a natural cataclysm shook the earth, decimating the scattered Aryan colonies and now, only in select parts of the world – most notably northern Europe – did some true Aryan blood remain. Himmler\'s history was pure fiction, but his conviction was unshakable. In 1935 he founded the \'Ahnenerbe\' – a research institute to manufacture archaeological evidence for political purposes – appointed himself president, and set about recruiting a bizarre mix of adventurers, mystics, careerists and reputable archaeologists to help write a new chapter in the ancient history of the Aryan race. Expeditions went sent out to Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Greenland and beyond, each backed by the power of the Third Reich to realize this bizarre scientific dream. ‘The Master Plan’ is also an expose of the German scientists and scholars who allowed their research to be used to justify extermination – many of whom resumed their academic positions at war\'s end. Intensely compelling and comprehensively researched, ‘The Master Plan’ is a story of delusion and excess; of scientific and political abuse on a global scale. It has all the energy of an adventure, but also the chilling truth of a terrifying episode in twentieth century history. Σελίδες: 480, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

A personal and lyrical rediscovery of the history of England through archaeology and the imagination.History thrives on stories. TIME\'S ANVIL explores archaeology\'s influence on what such stories say, how they are told, who tells them and how we listen.In a dazzlingly wide-ranging exploration, Richard Morris casts fresh light on three quarters of a million years of history in the place we now think of as England. Drawing upon genres that are usually pursued in isolation - like biography, poetry, or physics - he finds potent links between things we might imagine to be unrelated. His subjects range from humanity\'s roots to the destruction of the wildwood, from the first farmers to industrialization, and from Tudor drama to 20th-century conflict. Each topic sits at a different point along the continuum between epoch and the fleeting moment.In part, this is a history of archaeology; in part, too, it is a personal account of the author\'s history in archaeology. But mainly it is about how the past is read, and about what we bring to the reading as well as what we find. The result is a book that defies categorisation, but one which will by turns surprise, enthrall and provoke anyone who cares for England, who we are and where we have come from. TIME\'S ANVIL was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2013. Σελίδες: 480, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0114, Διαστάσεις: 13.2x13.2cm

For thousands of years we have been enthralled by tales of Troy and its heroes. Achilles and Hector, Paris and the famed beauty Helen remain some of the most enduring figures in art and literature. But did these titanic characters really walk the earth? Was there ever an actual siege of Troy? In this extensively revised edition, historian Michael Wood takes account of the latest dramatic developments in the search for Troy. His wide-ranging study of the complex archaeological, literary and historical records has been brought up-to-date. Detailing the rediscovery in Moscow of the so-called jewels of Helen and the re-excavation of the site of Troy begun in 1988, which continues to yield new evidence about the historical city, In Search of the Trojan War takes a fresh look at some of the most excited discoveries in archaeology. A dazzling and exhaustive analysis. Washington Post This beautifully illustrated book vividly evokes themes that are central to our civilizations quest for its past. The New York Times Book Review Σελίδες: 320, Διαστάσεις: 12.8x12.8cm

Britain\'s pagan past, with its mysterious monuments, atmospheric sites, enigmatic artifacts, bloodthirsty legends, and cryptic inscriptions, is both enthralling and perplexing to a resident of the twenty-first century. In this ambitious and thoroughly up-to-date book, Ronald Hutton reveals the long development, rapid suppression, and enduring cultural significance of paganism, from the Paleolithic era to the coming of Christianity. He draws on an array of recently discovered evidence and shows how new findings have radically transformed understandings of belief and ritual in Britain before the arrival of organized religion.   Setting forth a chronological narrative, along the way Hutton makes side visits to explore specific locations of ancient pagan activity. He includes the well-known sacred sites—Stonehenge, Avebury, Seahenge, Maiden Castle, Anglesey—as well as more obscure locations across the mainland and coastal islands. In tireless pursuit of the elusive “why” of pagan behavior, Hutton astonishes with the breadth of his understanding of Britain’s deep past and inspires with the originality of his insights. Σελίδες: 496, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0113, Διαστάσεις: 12.7x12.7cm

Award-winning science writer Steven Mithen explores how an understanding of our ancestors and their development can illuminate our brains and behaviour todayHow do our minds work? When did language and religious beliefs first emerge? Why was there a cultural explosion of art and creativity with the arrival of modern humans?This ground-breaking book brings the insight of archaeology to our understanding of the development and history of the human mind, combining them with ideas from evolutionary psychology in a brilliant and provocative synthesis. Σελίδες: 480, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0801, Διαστάσεις: 12.8x12.8cm

Offering new insights based on recent archaeological discoveries in their heartland of modern-day Lebanon, Mark Woolmer presents a fresh appraisal of this fascinating, yet elusive, Semitic people. Discussing material culture, language and alphabet, religion (including sacred prostitution of women and boys to the goddess Astarte), funerary custom and trade and expansion into the Punic west, he explores Phoenicia in all its paradoxical complexity. Viewed in antiquity as sage scribes and intrepid mariners who pushed back the boundaries of the known world, and as skilled engineers who built monumental harbour cities like Tyre and Sidon, the Phoenicians were also considered (especially by their rivals, the Romans) to be profiteers cruelly trading in human lives. The author shows them above all to have been masters of the sea: this was a civilization that circumnavigated Africa two thousand years before Vasco da Gama did it in 1498.The Phoenicians present a tantalizing face to the ancient historian. Latin sources suggest they once had an extensive literature of history, law, philosophy and religion; but all now is lost. In this revised and updated edition, Woolmer takes stock of recent historiographical developments in the field, bringing the present edition up to speed with contemporary understanding. Σελίδες: 272, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1202, Διαστάσεις: 13.8x13.8cm

An Economist Best History Book 2017  “History as it should be written.”—Barry Cunliffe, Guardian  “Scott hits the nail squarely on the head by exposing the staggering price our ancestors paid for civilization and political order.”—Walter Scheidel, Financial Times   Why did humans abandon hunting and gathering for sedentary communities dependent on livestock and cereal grains, and governed by precursors of today’s states? Most people believe that plant and animal domestication allowed humans, finally, to settle down and form agricultural villages, towns, and states, which made possible civilization, law, public order, and a presumably secure way of living. But archaeological and historical evidence challenges this narrative. The first agrarian states, says James C. Scott, were born of accumulations of domestications: first fire, then plants, livestock, subjects of the state, captives, and finally women in the patriarchal family—all of which can be viewed as a way of gaining control over reproduction.   Scott explores why we avoided sedentism and plow agriculture, the advantages of mobile subsistence, the unforeseeable disease epidemics arising from crowding plants, animals, and grain, and why all early states are based on millets and cereal grains and unfree labor. He also discusses the “barbarians” who long evaded state control, as a way of understanding continuing tension between states and nonsubject peoples. Σελίδες: 336, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0911, Διαστάσεις: 14x14cm

TV presenter Graham Hancock\'s multi-million bestseller Fingerprints of the Gods remains an astonishing, deeply controversial, wide-ranging investigation of the mysteries of our past and the evidence for Earth\'s lost civilization. Twenty years on, Hancock returns with a book filled with completely new, scientific and archaeological evidence, which has only recently come to light...The evidence revealed in this book shows beyond reasonable doubt that an advanced civilization that flourished during the Ice Age was destroyed in the global cataclysms between 12,800 and 11,600 years ago.Near the end of the last Ice Age 12,800 years ago, a giant comet that had entered the solar system from deep space thousands of years earlier, broke into multiple fragments. Some of these struck the Earth causing a global cataclysm on a scale unseen since the extinction of the dinosaurs. At least eight of the fragments hit the North American ice cap, while further fragments hit the northern European ice cap. The impacts, from comet fragments a mile wide approaching at more than 60,000 miles an hour, generated huge amounts of heat which instantly liquidized millions of square kilometres of ice, destabilizing the Earth\'s crust and causing the global Deluge that is remembered in myths all around the world.A second series of impacts, equally devastating, causing further cataclysmic flooding, occurred 11,600 years ago, the exact date that Plato gives for the destruction and submergence of Atlantis. But there were survivors - known to later cultures by names such as \'the Sages\', \'the Magicians\', \'the Shining Ones\', and \'the Mystery Teachers of Heaven\'. They travelled the world in their great ships doing all in their power to keep the spark of civilization burning. They settled at key locations - Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, Baalbek in the Lebanon, Giza in Egypt, ancient Sumer, Mexico, Peru and across the Pacific where a huge pyramid has recently been discovered in Indonesia. Everywhere they went these \'Magicians of the Gods\' brought with them the memory of a time when mankind had fallen out of harmony with the universe and paid a heavy price.A memory and a warning to the future... For the comet that wrought such destruction between 12,800 and 11,600 years may not be done with us yet. Astronomers believe that a 20-mile wide \'dark\' fragment of the original giant comet remains hidden within its debris stream and threatens the Earth. An astronomical message encoded at Gobekli Tepe, and in the Sphinx and the pyramids of Egypt,warns that the \'Great Return\' will occur in our time... Σελίδες: 608, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1011, Διαστάσεις: 13.2x13.2cm

The new instalment in T&H’s successful myths series (after The Greek and Roman Myths and The Egyptian Myths) introduces the world of the Celts, their gods and goddesses, heroes, monsters and villains. As well as vividly exploring the tales, the author brings her expertise in the archaeology of the Iron Age and particularly shamanism to bear on the mythical worlds she describes, with evidence as diverse as the Gundestrup Cauldron and the famous bog bodies. Starting with a discussion of how myths are transmitted and by whom, the author continues with an account of the Irish and Welsh myths and their key actors and motifs, before moving on to consider themes such as heroes, animals, women, environment and the Otherworld. In her finale, the author asks how the myths survived the Christianization of Europe and looks at the influence of monastic chroniclers on the tales, which they preserved and adapted. Σελίδες: 208, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0201, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

Forgotten is a search for hidden or neglected memorials and places in historic Palestine - now Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories - and what they might tell us about the land and the people who live on our small slip of earth between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. From ancient city ruins to the Nabi \'Ukkasha mosque and tomb, acclaimed writers and researchers Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson ask: what has been memorialised, and what lies unseen, abandoned or erased - and why? Whether standing on a high cliff overlooking Lebanon or at the lowest land-based elevation on earth at the Dead Sea, they explore lost connections in a fragmented land. In elegiac, elegant prose, Shehadeh and Johnson grapple not only with questions of Israeli resistance to acknowledging the Nakba - the 1948 catastrophe for Palestinians - but also with the complicated history of Palestinian commemoration today. Σελίδες: 240, Διαστάσεις: 13.6x13.6cm

Of all civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean, it is perhaps the Etruscans who hold the greatest allure. This is fundamentally because, unlike their Greek and Latin neighbours, the Etruscans left no textual sources to posterity. The only direct evidence for studying them and for understanding their culture is the archaeological, and to a much lesser extent, epigraphic record. The Etruscans must therefore be approached as if they were a prehistoric people; and the enormous wealth of Etruscan visual and material culture must speak for them. Yet they offer glimpses, in the record left by Greek and Roman authors, that they were literate and far from primordial: indeed, that their written histories were greatly admired by the Romans themselves.Applying fresh archaeological discoveries and new insights, A Short History of the Etruscans engagingly conducts the reader through the birth, growth and demise of this fascinating and enigmatic ancient people, whose nemesis was the growing power of Rome. Exploring the ‘discovery’ of the Etruscans from the Renaissance onwards, Corinna Riva discusses the mysterious Etruscan language, which long remained wholly indecipherable; the Etruscan landscape; the 6th-century growth of Etruscan cities and Mediterranean trade. Close attention is also paid to religion and ritual; sanctuaries and monumental grave sites; and the fatal incorporation of Etruria into Rome’s political orbit. Σελίδες: 288, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0114, Διαστάσεις: 13.8x13.8cm

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: 15.3x15.3cm

Focusing on the British Isles, the author explores a period of huge societal change – the Neolithic, or ‘New Stone Age’ – through the most iconic artifact of its time: the polished stone axe, using an ancient stone axe-head brought to him by a local quarry worker as a guide to the revolution that changed the world. These formidable creations were not only crucial tools that enabled the first farmers to clear the forests, but also objects of great symbolic importance, signifying status and power, wrapped up in expressions of religion and politics. Mixing anecdote, ethnography and archaeological analysis, the author vividly demonstrates how the archaeology on the ground reveals to us the evolving worldview of a species increasingly altering their own landscape; settling down together, investing in agricultural plots, and collectively erecting massive ceremonial monuments to cement new communal identities. As a direct result of the invention, and intensification, of agriculture, the planet entered the Anthropocene, or the current ‘age of humanity’: an era in which we are changing the world around us in significant, accelerating and often unpredictable ways. As the author poignantly concludes, our ancestors set us on the path to the modern world we live in; now seven billion humans must face the challenges that presents.With 76 illustrations, 24 in colour Σελίδες: 448, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0225, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

More than a century has passed past since German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered the treasures of Bronze Age Mycenae. The richly decorated artefacts of the entombed warriors, whose bodies still lay in their graves, confirmed that Homer\'s epic The Iliad was based upon true events, and that the Achaeans described in his poems probably did exist. Through a combined study of the mythical tradition, archeological findings and written sources, this fascinating addition to the Warrior series explores the evolution of warfare in the Bronze Age Greek world. Covering weaponry, clothing, helmets and body armour, it provides a richly illustrated guide to the warriors who have shone from the pages of Homer\'s poem for almost three millennia. Σελίδες: 64, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0320, Διαστάσεις: 18.4x18.4cm

***THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER***\'Hancock\'s books provide a fascinating, alternative version of prehistory. America Before, detailed and wide-ranging, turns what was myth and legend into a new story of the past.\' Daily MailWas an advanced civilization lost to history in the global cataclysm that ended the last Ice Age? Graham Hancock, the internationally bestselling author and presenter of the Netflix hit Ancient Apocalypse, has made it his life\'s work to find out -- and in America Before, he draws on the latest archaeological and DNA evidence to bring his quest to a stunning conclusion.We\'ve been taught that North and South America were empty of humans until around 13,000 years ago - amongst the last great landmasses on earth to have been settled by our ancestors. But new discoveries have radically reshaped this long-established picture and we know now that the Americas were first peopled more than 130,000 years ago - many tens of thousands of years before human settlements became established elsewhere.Hancock\'s research takes us on a series of journeys and encounters with the scientists responsible for the recent extraordinary breakthroughs. In the process, from the Mississippi Valley to the Amazon rainforest, he reveals that ancient \'New World\' cultures share a legacy of advanced scientific knowledge and sophisticated spiritual beliefs with supposedly unconnected \'Old World\' cultures. Have archaeologists focussed for too long only on the \'Old World\' in their search for the origins of civilization while failing to consider the revolutionary possibility that those origins might in fact be found in the \'New World\'?America Before: The Key to Earth\'s Lost Civilisation is the culmination of everything that millions of readers have loved in Hancock\'s body of work over the past decades, namely a mind-dilating exploration of the mysteries of the past, amazing archaeological discoveries and profound implications for how we lead our lives today. Σελίδες: 640, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1218, Διαστάσεις: 13x13cm

Why did Rome fall? Vicious barbarian invasions during the fifth century resulted in the cataclysmic end of the world\'s most powerful civilization, and a \'dark age\' for its conquered peoples. Or did it? The dominant view of this period today is that the \'fall of Rome\' was a largely peaceful transition to Germanic rule, and the start of a positive cultural transformation. Bryan Ward-Perkins encourages every reader to think again by reclaiming the drama and violence of the last days of the Roman world, and reminding us of the very real horrors of barbarian occupation. Attacking new sources with relish and making use of a range of contemporary archaeological evidence, he looks at both the wider explanations for the disintegration of the Roman world and also the consequences for the lives of everyday Romans, in a world of economic collapse, marauding barbarians, and the rise of a new religious orthodoxy. He also looks at how and why successive generations have understood this period differently, and why the story is still so significant today. Σελίδες: 256, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt is the only up-to-date, single-volume history of ancient Egypt available in English. The accessible essays and attractive illustrations portray the emergence and development of the distinctive civilization of the ancient Egyptians, from their prehistoric origins to their incorporation into the Roman Empire, covering the period from c. 700,000 BC to AD 311. The authors - all experts working at the cutting edge of their particular fields - outline the principal sequence of political events, including detailed examinations of the three so-called \'intermediate periods\' which were previously regarded as \'dark ages\' and are only now beginning to be better understood. Against the backdrop of the rise and fall of ruling dynasties, this Oxford History also examines cultural and social patterns, including stylistic developments in art and literature. The pace of change in such aspects of Egyptian culture as monumental architecture, funerary beliefs, and ethnicity was not necessarily tied to the rate of political change. Each of the authors of this history has therefore set out to elucidate, in both words and pictures, the underlying patterns of social and political change and to describe the changing face of ancient Egypt, from the biographical details of individuals to the social and economic factors that shaped the lives of the population as a whole. Σελίδες: 544, Διαστάσεις: 12.8x12.8cm

In ancient Egypt women enjoyed a legal, social and sexual independence unrivalled by their Greek or Roman sisters, or in fact by most women until the late nineteenth century. They could own and trade in property, work outside the home, marry foreigners and live alone without the protection of a male guardian. Some of them even rose to rule Egypt as ‘female kings’. Joyce Tyldesley’s vivid history of how women lived in ancient Egypt weaves a fascinating picture of daily life – marriage and the home, work and play, grooming and religion – viewed from a female perspective, in a work that is engaging, original and constantly surprising. Σελίδες: 352, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

‘The best account of Angkor available in English … takes the reader on a panoramic tour of Cambodian history from earliest times to the latest finds’ Ben Kiernan, author of The Pol Pot Regime The ancient city of Angkor in Cambodia has fascinated scholars and visitors alike since its rediscovery in the mid-19th century. A great deal was already known about the history of Angkor and the brilliant Khmer civilization that built it thanks to pioneering work by archaeologists and scholars, but our knowledge has now been completely revolutionized by cutting-edge technology. Airborne laser scanning (LiDAR) has revealed entire cities that were previously unknown and a complex urban landscape with highways and waterways, profoundly transforming our interpretations of the development and supposed decline of Angkor. In this comprehensive edition of Angkor and the Khmer Civilization, respected archaeologist Michael Coe is joined by Damian Evans, who led this remarkable programme of scientific exploration, to present for the first time in book form the results and implications of these ground-breaking discoveries that are rewriting history. Σελίδες: 336, Έτος Έκδοσης: 0220, Διαστάσεις: 12.9x12.9cm

By employing the same basic methodologies used to establish the currently accepted chronology, it has been possible for a group of young archaeologists, including David Rohl, to create a New Chronology which resolves many of the problems permeating ancient world studies. In particular, one model has been developed which has major implications for Old Testament research. Through the revision of the master chronology of ancient Egypt they have unlocked the key to biblical history - the epic events of the Bible really did happen as recorded in the Books of Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Samuel, Kings and Chronicles - the problem was that we had previously been looking for them in completely the wrong place in time.Many of the conundrums of the past are explained, and legendary figures such as Joseph, Moses, David and Solomon find their true political setting. Exodus and Conquest will be restored to history and the magic of legend will begin to make its great comeback Σελίδες: 640, Διαστάσεις: 11.2x11.2cm

Every part of the human body has a name - and story. But how familiar are you with your arachnoid mater or your Haversian canals?Anatomical Oddities is an artistic and linguistic adventure, taking the reader on a journey to discover the hidden landscape of the human body: its crypts and caverns, gorges, islets and mountains. Along the way, we dip into the history of our relationship with the human body and the discoveries that paved the way for modern anatomy and medicine. Quirky, bizarre and beautiful, these pages feature original artworks from Professor Alice Roberts. The intricate details of the human body, the stories of people who unearthed its secrets, and the meanings of the words we use to describe it are laid bare. Σελίδες: 144, Έτος Έκδοσης: 1110, Διαστάσεις: 18.7x18.7cm

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: 15.3x15.3cm