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.

Threads of the Unfolding Web is essential reading for scholars, students and the general reader interested in Javanese history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Little is known about the history of Java in this period, which witnessed the beginnings of major global economic, political, cultural and religious change. It was a time when Java saw the decline of the once powerful eastern Javanese kingdom of Majapahit, the rise of Muslim kingdoms on Java's northern coast and the arrival of the first Europeans in the person of the Portuguese Tome Pires in Java's cosmopolitan ports. "Stuart Robson's expert English translation of the Tantu Panggelaran gives his readers ready access to this important work, which provides insight into how the author and his contemporary Javanese readers imagined the realities of the world in which they lived. We learn how they conceived the creation of this world and understood the relationship between the gods and men. Importantly, we learn also how they conceived a history of the foundation and spread of Bhairava Sivaite hermitages, shrines and temples. The work traces the history of this network from its origins in the vicinity of the Dieng plateau and the northern plains of Batang and Pekalongan to its subsequent expansion to the Tengger and Hyang Massifs of eastern Java. Hadi Sidomulyo's impressive commentary, an amalgam of textual analysis and the survey of archaeological sites, is a model for the way in which further research of this sort might be conducted and underlines the urgent need for further archaeological surveys and the future excavation of archaeological sites." -- Professor Emeritus Peter Worsley, Indonesian Studies, University of Sydney "Ever since the dissertation of Th. Pigeaud was published in 1926, the Tantu Panggelaran has both intrigued and perplexed scholars of the cultural history of Java. Despite Pigeaud's translation and copious notes much remained uncertain and his comments were not easily accessible except to readers of Dutch. Now, the publication of Threads of the Unfolding Web has breathed new life into studies of this rare exemplar of the literature of the "period of transition" in sixteenth century Java. This collaborative volume combines the skills of Stuart Robson, a senior in the field of translation from Old Javanese, and Hadi Sidomulyo, whose deep interest in the early history of Java combines attention to the inscriptional record with field work using GPS technology to locate and describe archaeological remains spread throughout Java. As a result you have before you a volume that illustrates the close linkages between a literary text describing the mythical foundations of the Saiva ascetic communities of the Javanese Rsi order and the geophysical coordinates of these communities as far as they can be traced today. This combination represents a giant leap forward for studies of the Tantu Panggelaran. We owe the authors a debt of gratitude for the years of work that lay behind the completion of this important volume."-- Thomas M. Hunter, Lecturer in South-Southeast Asian Studies, University of British Columbia

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.

With contributions by J.N. Bremmer, J. Carlsen, D.P. Kehoe, L. De ligt, E. Lo Cascio, F.J.A.M. Meijer, H.W. Pleket, D. Rathbone, P. Rosafio, H. Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H.W. Singor, W. Scheidel, R.J. v.d. Spek, H.C. Teitler, H.S. Versnel, H.T. Wallinga, D. Yntema.