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.

This is a short, illustrated introduction to the ever-fascinating topic of Egyptian mummies, by an international expert. It is a readable, short, but authoritative overview of Egyptian mummification. It deals with perennially popular topic. It is illustrated throughout in colour. The author, a world expert on Egyptian mummification, addresses the most frequently asked questions about Egyptian mummies: how and why they were made, the religious beliefs which underpinned mummification, the preservation of animals, and how the mummies have been treated from ancient times until the present day. He provides an up to date summary of the ancient evidence, and also considers modern attitudes to Egyptian mummies, emphasising their role as a major source of knowledge and understanding about past societies. The text and illustrations draw heavily on the rich collection of mummies and funerary objects in the British Museum, and the findings of a wide range of recent scientific investigations of this collection. The book will therefore reflect the important advances which have been made in the understanding of Egyptian mummies over the last few years. The Author John H. Taylor is a curator of Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum.

The present book takes up the long-debated subject of the presence of amber around the Adriatic during the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC). It offers an exhaustive review of the current state of knowledge about the use of amber by prehistoric communities living on the opposite sides of the sea. The author focuses primarily on the spatial and chronological aspects of amber’s acquisition in Italy and the Balkans, form and function of the artefacts made of it, issues connected to their processing and ways of circulation of these products within the study area. Furthermore, attention is paid to material and symbolic statuses of amber among the local societies. Finally, the role of the circum-Adriatic zone in the long-range transfer of amber from Northern to Southern Europe is assessed.