The archaeology of Greece

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Jefferson Reid and Stephanie Whittlesey

Carved from cliffs and canyons, buried in desert rock and sand are pieces of the ancient past that beckon thousands of visitors every year to the American Southwest. Whether Montezuma Castle or a chunk of pottery, these traces of prehistory also bring archaeologists from all over the world, and their work gives us fresh insight and information on an almost day-to-day basis. Descriptions of long-ago people are balanced with tales about the archaeologists who have devoted their lives to learning more about "those who came before." Trekking through the desert with the famed Emil Haury, readers will stumble upon Ventana Cave, his, "answer to a prayer." With amateur archaeologist Richard Wetherill, they will sense the peril of crossing the flooded San Juan River on the way to Chaco Canyon. Others profiled in the book are A. V. Kidder, Andrew Ellicott Douglass, Julian Hayden, Harold S. Gladwin, and many more names synonymous with the continuing saga of southwestern archaeology. This book is an open invitation to general readers to join in solving the great archaeological puzzles of this part of the world. Moreover, it is the only up-to-date summary of a field advancing so rapidly that much of the material is new even to professional archaeologists.

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Christopher R. DeCorse

"An Archaeology of Elmina examines a complex African settlement on the coast of present-day Ghana from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries, using the archaeological record, European narratives, and indigenous oral histories. Placing the site in broader context as the first European trade post in sub-Saharan Africa, Christopher R. DeCorse explores developments there in light of Portuguese, Dutch, and British expansion and illustrates remarkable cultural continuity in the midst of technological change."--BOOK JACKET.

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Hershel Shanks

Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography traces the turbulent history of the Holy City on the 3,000th anniversary of its establishment by King David as the capital of Israel. The reader will follow archaeologists as they discover where Jesus was buried, what Solomon's Temple looked like, and how David captured the city. Here, too, is the painful evidence of the city's repeated destruction - by the Babylonians, led by the rapacious Nebuchadnezzar, and then by the Romans, under Titus. This comprehensive, authoritative, up-to-the-minute account debunks many long-standing theories: Solomon's Stables were not built by Solomon, nor were they a stable, and the Garden of Gethsemane, where Judas betrayed Jesus and where Jesus was arrested, was not a garden but a cave. Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography is like a visit to Jerusalem, and more instructive: 200 full-color pictures lead the reader through a clear and fascinating text filled with little-known details. This authoritative book is the perfect introduction to the Holy City.

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Estelle Lazer

"Pompeii has been continuously excavated and studied since 1748. Early scholars working there and in other sites associated with the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius were seduced by the wealth of artefacts and wall paintings yielded by the site, meaning that the less visually attractive evidence, such as human skeletal remains, was largely ignored, and its archaeological value unrecognized and compromised." "A number of skeletons were used as props for vignettes of the tragic last moments of the victims, made to impress dignitaries visiting the site. They were also used to creatively reconstruct the lives of the victims in literary works, such as Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1834 novel, The Last Days of Pompeii, where the skeletal evidence is presented through storytelling with a thin veneer of science. This work in particular has had a profound influence and has driven the agenda of many Pompeian and Campanian skeletal studies into the twenty-first century." "Recognizing the important contribution of the human skeletal evidence to the archaeology of Pompeii and studying the reasons for the scientific neglect of the human remains, Resurrecting Pompeii provides detailed information about what the skeletal record can actually provide. Estelle Lazer demonstrates that the biological evidence does not support the detail of the stories that have been told to date, but it does yield tantalizing glimpses into the lives and deaths of the victims, providing students of archaeology and history with an essential resource in the study of this fascinating historical event."--Jacket.