Anasazi, the Navajos' name for the "Ancient Ones" who preceded them into the Southwest, is the nickname of Richard Wetherill, who devoted his life to a search for remains of these vanished peoples. He discovered the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and Kiet Siel and the Basket Maker sites at Grand Gulch, Utah, and at Chaco Canyon he initiated the excavation of Pueblo Bonito, the largest prehistoric ruin in the United States. His discoveries are among the most important ever made by an American archaeologist.

Scholars often assume that elite, or high-status tomb chapels of the Egyptian Old and Middle Kingdoms featured decorations in order to provide for the eternal needs of the deceased. However, this explanation often fails to account for the content of many such decorations.

The Cosmos of Khnumhotep II offers a detailed study of the tomb chapel of Khnumhotep II. Kamrin painstakingly charts the various levels of meaning buried in the scenes, ornaments, and texts that adorn Khnumhotep II's chapel, and provides a detailed analysis of the organizational structure of the tomb. She argues that the tomb chapel should be interpreted as a model of the cosmos, integrating the realms of the living and the dead. An abundance of new evidence suggests that various cult structures may be regarded as cosmograms, schematized representations of the Egyptian cosmos that reflect the powers and operations of the universe.

Reviewing the data from other New Kingdom settlements on a micro-spatial level, this study reveals a highly diversified and unique pattern of habitation in the Nile Valley. The main focus of this work is the New Kingdom which offers the largest number of sites from any one period.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today. Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering over 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century AD. An unashamedly 'big history', it charts the development of European, Near Eastern, and Chinese civilizations and the growing links between them by way of the Indian Ocean, the silk Roads, and the great steppe corridor (which crucially allowed horse riders to travel from Mongolia to the Great Hungarian Plain within a year). Along the way, it is also the story of the rise and fall of empires, the development of maritime trade, and the shattering impact of predatory nomads on their urban neighbours. Above all, as this immense historical panorama unfolds, we begin to see in clearer focus those basic underlying factors - the acquisitive nature of humanity, the differing environments in which people live, and the dislocating effect of even slight climatic variation - which have driven change throughout the ages, and which help us better understand our world today.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Levant - modern Lebanon, southern Syria, Jordan, Israel and Palestine - is one of the most intensively excavated regions of the world. This richly documented and illustrated survey offers a state-of-the-art description of the formative phase of Levantine societies, as they perfected the Mediterranean village economy and began to interact with neighboring civilizations in Egypt and Syria, on the way to establishing their first towns and city-state polities. Citing numerous finds and interpretive approaches, Greenberg offers a new narrative of social and cultural development, emulation, resistance and change, illustrating how Levantine communities translated broader movements of the Near Eastern and Mediterranean Bronze Age - the emergence of states, international trade, elite networks and imperial ambitions - into a uniquely Levantine idiom.

In recent decades, advances in deciphering Maya hieroglyphic writing have given scholars new tools for understanding key aspects of ancient Maya society. This book--the first comprehensive examination of the Maya royal court--exemplifies the importance of these new sources. Authored by anthropologist Sarah E. Jackson and richly illustrated with drawings, photographs, and maps, "Politics of the""Maya Court" uses hieroglyphic and iconographic evidence to explore the composition and social significance of royal courts in the Late Classic period (a.d. 600-900), with a special emphasis on the role of courtly elites.

As Jackson explains, the Maya region of southern Mexico and Central America was not a unified empire but a loosely aggregated culture area composed of independent kingdoms. Royal courts had a presence in large, central communities from Chiapas to Yucatan and the highlands of Guatemala and western Honduras. Each major polity was ruled by a "k'uhul ajaw," or holy lord, who embodied intertwined aspects of religious and political authority. The hieroglyphic texts that adorned walls, furniture, and portable items in these centers of power provide specific information about the positions, roles, and meanings of the courts. Jackson uses these documents as keys to understanding Classic Maya political hierarchy and, specifically, the institution of the royal court. Within this context, she investigates the lives of the nobility and the participation of elites in court politics. By identifying particular individuals and their life stories, Jackson humanizes Maya society, showing how events resulted from the actions and choices of specific people.

Jackson's innovative portrayal of court membership provides a foundation for scholarship on the nature, functions, and responsibilities of Maya royal courts.

Commissioned to mark the 75th anniversary of the start of work in the royal burial ground by the 5th Earl of Carnavon and Howard Carter, this book presents an up-to-date review of the developments in excavation, mapping and research in the Valley of the Kings.

Native Americans have occupied the mountains of northwestern North Carolina for around 14,000 years. This book tells the story of their lives, adaptations, responses to climate change, and ultimately, the devastation brought on by encounters with Europeans. After a brief introduction to archaeology, the book covers each time period, chapter by chapter, beginning with the Paleoindian period in the Ice Age and ending with the arrival of Daniel Boone in 1769, with descriptions and interpretations of archaeological evidence for each time period. Each chapter begins with a fictional vignette to kindle the reader's imaginings of ancient human life in the mountains, and includes descriptions and numerous images of sites and artifacts discovered in Boone, North Carolina and the surrounding region.

First published in 1988. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This volume of Medieval European Coinage traces the coinage and monetary history of Britain and Ireland in the early Middle Ages, offering the first major single-volume treatment of the subject in decades. It examines the period from the end of the Roman province of Britain in the fifth century to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 and the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169-71. The volume re-evaluates the complex seventh- and eighth-century English coinages, follows the evolution of the Anglo-Saxon coinage into one of the most sophisticated monetary systems in medieval Europe, and also covers the coins issued by Viking settlers in parts of England and Ireland. Bringing recent advances in historical and numismatic research to a wider audience, this landmark volume is supported by one of the most complete catalogues of the period illustrating the world-class collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum.

One of the most visited places in the world, Rome attracts millions of tourists each year to walk its storied streets and see famous sites like the Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, and the Trevi Fountain. Yet this ancient city's allure is due as much to its rich, unbroken history as to its extraordinary array of landmarks. Countless incarnations and eras merge in the Roman cityscape. With a history spanning nearly three millennia, no other place can quite match the resilience and reinventions of the aptly nicknamed Eternal City. In this unique and visually engaging book, Jessica Maier considers Rome through the eyes of mapmakers and artists who have managed to capture something of its essence over the centuries. Viewing the city as not one but ten "Romes," she explores how the varying maps and art reflect each era's key themes. Ranging from modest to magnificent, the images comprise singular aesthetic monuments like paintings and grand prints as well as more popular and practical items like mass-produced tourist plans, archaeological surveys, and digitizations. The most iconic and important images of the city appear alongside relatively obscure, unassuming items that have just as much to teach us about Rome's past. Through 140 full-color images and thoughtful overviews of each era, Maier provides an accessible, comprehensive look at Rome's many overlapping layers of history in this landmark volume. The first book ever published in English to tell Rome's rich story through its maps, The Eternal City beautifully captures the past, present, and future of one of the most famous and enduring places on the planet.

The dramatic story of Richard III, England's last medieval king, captured the world's attention when an archaeological team led by the University of Leicester identified his remains in February 2013. The Bones of a King presents the official behind-the-scenes story of the Grey Friars dig from the team of specialists who discovered and identified his remains * The most extensive and authoritative book written for non-specialists by the expert team who discovered and analysed the remains of Richard III * Features more than 40 illustrations, maps and photographs * Builds an expansive view of Richard's life, death and burial, as well as accounts of the treatment of his body prior to burial, and his legacy in the public imagination from the time of his death to the present * Explains the scientific evidence behind his identification, including DNA retrieval and sequencing, soil samples, his wounds and his scoliosis, and what they reveal about his life, his health and even the food he ate * A behind-the-scenes look at one of the most exciting historical discoveries of our time

Recently broadcast on a television documentary, Wayne Herschel's new findings completely challenge the theories on human origins and the pyramids. He provides new evidence identifying a global pyramid/star map pattern and a recurring hidden message encrypted as a rendition of Da Vinci's 'Vitruvian' human blueprint code. Astronomers have tested Herschel's 50 pyramids of Lower Egypt replicating the known constellations as a grand pyramid/star map. Egypt's ultimate monument is positioned as the proverbial "x" that marks the spot. It venerates a star that has been catalogued astronomically as being identical to our Sun. The matching cosmic pattern is found at Stonehenge, Tikal and at Angkor. For the first time ever, a specific star is proposed as a star system of origin of our ancient 'astronaut' ancestors who were later revered as 'gods' when they revisited. The highlight of the book is undoubtedly the rumoured pyramid ruins on Mars providing the most detailed star correlation of all, with a perfect interpretation of the human code. But for whom was the cosmic message intended, as it certainly was not for us? All the pyramid star maps are too massive, face skyward, and the only way to decipher them is to view them from space. This title takes the reader on a riveting journey from one clue to the next, presenting the strongest evidence to date that we have never ever been alone in the universe.

From the time when archaeologists first began to discover the civilization's spectacular ruins, Mexico's Mayan past has been a boundless source of inspiration, ideas, and iconography for the modernist imagination. This study examines the ways artists, architects, filmmakers, photographers, and other producers of visual culture in Mexico, the United States, Europe, and beyond have mined Mayan history and imagery. Beginning his study in the mid-nineteenth century, with the first mechanically reproduced and mass distributed images of the Mayan ruins, and ending with recent works that address this history of representation, Lerner argues that Maya modernism is the product of an ongoing pan-American modernism characterized by a continuing series of reinterpretations, collaborations, and exchanges in which Yucatecans, Mexicans and foreigners, mestizos, Mayas, and others all participate and are free to endorse, misunderstand, reinterpret, or reject each other's ideas.

A major new history of the race between two geniuses to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Europe In 1799, a French Army officer was rebuilding the defenses of a fort on the banks of the Nile when he discovered an ancient stele fragment bearing a decree inscribed in three different scripts. So begins one of the most familiar tales in Egyptology-that of the Rosetta Stone and the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. This book draws on fresh archival evidence to provide a major new account of how the English polymath Thomas Young and the French philologist Jean-Francois Champollion vied to be the first to solve the riddle of the Rosetta. Jed Buchwald and Diane Greco Josefowicz bring to life a bygone age of intellectual adventure. Much more than a decoding exercise centered on a single artifact, the race to decipher the Rosetta Stone reflected broader disputes about language, historical evidence, biblical truth, and the value of classical learning. Buchwald and Josefowicz paint compelling portraits of Young and Champollion, two gifted intellects with altogether different motivations. Young disdained Egyptian culture and saw Egyptian writing as a means to greater knowledge about Greco-Roman antiquity. Champollion, swept up in the political chaos of Restoration France and fiercely opposed to the scholars aligned with throne and altar, admired ancient Egypt and was prepared to upend conventional wisdom to solve the mystery of the hieroglyphs. Taking readers from the hushed lecture rooms of the Institut de France to the windswept monuments of the Valley of the Kings, The Riddle of the Rosetta reveals the untold story behind one of the nineteenth century's most thrilling discoveries.

75,000 years ago... early humans built a stone calendar that predates all other man-made structures found to date. Who were they? Why did they need a calendar?

Adam's Calendar firmly places the many ancient ruins of southern Africa at a point in history that we modern humans have never faced before some 75,000 ago.

It therefore symbolises the first conscious human looking at his first sunrise as a free species on planet Earth.

This long-awaited resource complements its companion volume on Classic Period monumental inscriptions. Authors Martha J. Macri and Gabrielle Vail provide a comprehensive listing of graphemes found in the Dresden, Madrid, and Paris codices, 40 percent of which are unique to these painted manuscripts, and discuss current and past interpretations of these graphemes.The New Catalog uses an original coding system developed for the Maya Hieroglyphic Database Project. The new three-digit codes group the graphemes according to their visual, rather than functional, characteristics to allow readers to see distinctions between similar signs. Each entry contains the grapheme's New Catalog code, an image, the corresponding Thompson number, proposed syllabic and logographic values, calendrical significance, and bibliographical citations. Appendices and an index of signs from both volumes contain images of all graphemes and variants ordered by code, allowing readers to search for graphemes by visual form or by their proposed logographic and phonetic values. Together the two volumes of the New Catalog represent the most significant updating of the sign lists for the Maya script proposed in half a century. They provide a cutting-edge reference tool critical to the research of Mesoamericanists in the fields of archaeology, art history, ethnohistory, and linguistics, and a valuable resource to scholars specializing in comparative studies of writing systems and related disciplines.

Ancestral Puebloan peoples inhabited the Pottery Mound site on New Mexico's Rio Puerco River from the late fourteenth to the late fifteenth centuries. Archaeologist Frank C. Hibben began excavating Pottery Mound fifty years ago, when archaeologists were paying relatively little attention to Ancestral Pueblo sites. Pottery Mound remains poorly studied, under published, and largely neglected.

Hibben found that Pottery Mound was home to diverse Puebloan characteristics evident in both Rio Grande Pueblos and the Western Pueblos. Hibben also discovered an abundance of pottery styles and layers of murals in eleven kivas that are a magnificent archive of religious iconography of the period.

"In New Perspectives on the Pottery Mound Pueblo," renowned Southwestern archaeologist Polly Schaafsma presents essays by contemporary scholars on the site's murals, rock art, pottery, textiles, and archaeofaunal remains. Contributors revisit Pottery Mound for new insights into inhabitants' regional interactions, migrations, and trade during the Pueblo IV period--a time of dynamic change in Puebloan culture.

Contributors:
Michael Adler--associate professor of anthropology, Southern Methodist University
Tiffany Clark--zooarchaeologist, Arizona State University, Tempe
Helen K. Crotty--research associate, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Suzanne Eckert--assistant professor of anthropology, Texas A&M University
Kelley Hays-Gilpin--associate professor of anthropology, Northern Arizona University
Steven LeBlanc--director of collections, Peabody Museum, Harvard University
Patricia Vivian--anthropologist, Witch Well, Arizona
R.Gwinn Vivian--professor emeritus of anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson
Laurie Webster--visiting scholar in anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson
David R. Wilcox--curator of anthropology, Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff

Why did the Vikings sail to England? Were they indiscriminate raiders, motivated solely by bloodlust and plunder? One narrative, the stereotypical one, might have it so. But locked away in the buried history of the British Isles are other, far richer and more nuanced, stories; and these hidden tales paint a picture very different from the ferocious pillagers of popular repute. In this book, Eleanor Parker unlocks secrets that point to more complex motivations within the marauding army that in the late-9th century voyaged to the shores of eastern England in its sleek, dragon-prowed longships. Exploring legends from forgotten medieval texts, and across the varied Anglo-Saxon regions, she depicts Vikings who came not just to raid but also to settle personal feuds, intervene in English politics and find a place to call home. Native tales reveal the links to famous Vikings like Ragnar Lothbrok and his sons, Cnut, and Havelok the Dane. Each myth shows how the legacy of the newcomers can still be traced in landscape, place-names and local history. Meticulously researched and elegantly argued, Dragon Lords uncovers the remarkable degree to which England is Viking to its core.

This volume documents the analysis of excavated historical archaeological collections at the Cape of Good Hope, specifically The Castle in Cape Town and Oudepost in Saldanha Bay, over a period of 30 years. It provides a rich picture of life and times at this distant outpost of an immense Dutch seaborne empire in the late 17th and early 18th centuries - a vision of consumption, waste, taste, provisioning, identity and heritage. The book examines ceramics, glass, metal and other material objects in their archaeological contexts. By revealing the source, uses and significance of some of the material residues of the VOC, this book seeks to create a rich, comparative picture of colonial material culture in an emerging capitalist world.

Archaeologists have come to recognize that prehistoric burial practices provide an unparalleled opportunity for understanding and reconstructing ancient civilizations and for identifying the influences that helped shape them. Editors Douglas Mitchell and Judy Brunson-Hadley have gathered unprecedented scholarship on burial practices and sites in the American Southwest offering a wide variety of approaches, techniques, and analyses by leading archaeologists, physical and biological anthropologists, paleopathologists, and Native American tribal historians and resource managers.

Twenty scholars evaluate ancient burial practices to recreate the structure and history of major southwestern cultures, including the Hohokam, Anasazi, Sinagua, Zuni, Mogollon, and Salado. This state-of-the-art collection combines case studies, population analyses, an examination of new federal laws that have changed the face of archaeological mortuary studies, and an essential Native American perspective on archaeologistsa study of human remains and mortuary artifacts.