Born in Hamburg to Jewish parents, Julius Oppert (1825-1905) later moved to France, where he established a reputation as a remarkably gifted Assyriologist, making significant contributions to the decipherment of cuneiform Akkadian. Between 1851 and 1854, he accompanied the orientalist Fulgence Fresnel (1795-1855) on the French expedition to Mesopotamia. In recognition of his role, involving important excavations at the site of the ancient city of Babylon, Oppert was granted French citizenship. In May 1855, however, a great many of the discovered antiquities were lost when the raft transporting them sank in the Tigris under the weight of its priceless cargo. The present work appeared in two volumes between 1859 and 1863; the publication of the second volume preceded that of the first, as Oppert prioritised the analysis of the cuneiform inscriptions. Volume 2 (1859) is devoted to these inscriptions and the painstaking work of deciphering them.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1839 Excerpt: ...be particularly examined, partly with a view to find the ancient bed of the river between them, and partly to ascertain the precise limits as well as the altitudes of the mounds and the level of the subterraneous passage. The mound lying between the Kasr and the Mujelibe should also be examined. It has probably been dug into for bricks, and some information may be collected from a view of the excavations. 134 TOPOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT BABYLON. It has not yet been distinctly shown by any person of what quality the materials of the substratum of the Mujelibe are. Much may be collected from a knowledge of this circumstance, as it is possible that it may have been a natural eminence reduced to that form; such a one being said to occur at Musseib, a place at the side of the Euphrates, higher up on the same side (of Mesopotamia). As Mr. Rich projected other excursions to these ruins (see his Memoir, page 45), we may soon expect some further information, and that probably of an interesting kind. It is obvious, however, that very much time will be required for the purpose of examining the different objects generally, they being so numerous and so widely extended. SECOND MEMOIR ON BABYLON: CONTAINING AN INQUIRY INTO THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE ANCIENT DESCRIPTIONS OF BABYLON AND THE REMAINS STILL VISIBLE ON THE SITE. SUGGESTED BY THE "REMARKS" OF MAJOR RENNELL PUBLISHED IN THE ARCHfOLOGIA. BT CLAUDIUS JAMES RICH, Esq. ADVERTISEMENT. My first very imperfect Memoir made its appearance in an oriental literary Journal, published in Vienna, and called the Mines de P Orient. So numerous were the typographical errors of that edition, that my Essay was in many places scarcely recognisable even by myself. My friends were of opinion that it ought to be republished in...

Clements R. Markham (1830-1916) began his career in the Royal Navy, sailing to South America, learning Spanish, and participating in the Arctic search for Sir John Franklin. In 1852, determined to succeed as an explorer and geographer, he travelled to Peru and visited the site of the ancient city of Cuzco, previously little known in Europe. Published in 1856, this is Markham's lively account of his travels. In his description of arriving in Panama we see a picture of the mid-nineteenth-century eagerness to explore (or exploit) Latin America. Markham's stay in Cuzco allowed him ample time to study the ruins and research the lost Inca civilisation, and also gave him his introduction to the properties of the cinchona plant, a source of quinine, which he later returned to collect and introduce to India, as described in his 1862 Travels in Peru and India (also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection).

This book contains two works by William Kennett Loftus (1821-58) in which he describes his archaeological surveying and excavations in Mesopotamia between 1849 and 1855. An enthusiastic antiquarian and geologist, Loftus was appointed to the staff of the Turco-Persian Frontier Commission. On his travels, he located many ruins later identified as biblical cities, including Warkah (Uruk) and Tell el-Muqayyar (Ur). In 1854 Loftus was enabled by the newly formed Assyrian Excavation Fund to return to Warkah, and he excavated over a three-month period, discovering artefacts and cuneiform tablets which he sent to the British Museum. His Travels and Researches, describing his work in Mesopotamia up to 1852, was published in 1857, and his short account of his later work at Warkah in 1859, after his early death. These texts remain a record of the first discoveries in a region significant for its biblical history, but previously hardly visited by Europeans.

The Assyriologist George Smith (1840-76) was trained originally as an engraver, but was enthralled by the discoveries of Layard and Rawlinson. He taught himself cuneiform script, and joined the British Museum as a 'repairer' or matcher of broken cuneiform tablets. Promotion followed, and after one of Smith's most significant discoveries among the material sent to the Museum - a Babylonian story of a great flood - he was sent to the Middle East, where he found more inscriptions which contained other parts of the epic tale of Gilgamesh. In this 1875 work, a bestseller in its day, Smith describes his expedition, the difficulties encountered, and the discoveries, including hundreds of inscriptions which increased knowledge of the Babylonian and Assyrian civilisations but also had a profound effect on traditional biblical studies. Smith died in Aleppo in 1876, having revolutionised understanding of the ancient Near East.

The Assyriologist George Smith (1840-76) was trained originally as an engraver, but was enthralled by the discoveries of Layard and Rawlinson. He taught himself cuneiform script, and joined the British Museum as a 'repairer' of broken cuneiform tablets. Promotion followed, and after one of Smith's most significant discoveries among the material sent to the Museum - a Babylonian story of a great flood - he was sent to the Middle East, where he found more inscriptions which contained other parts of the epic tale of Gilgamesh. Before his early death in 1876, he was writing a history of Babylonia for the 'Ancient History from the Monuments' series. Prepared for press by A. H. Sayce, it was published in 1877. Smith traces the story of the Babylonian empire from mythical times ('before the deluge') to its conquest by Persia in the sixth century BCE. Several other books by Smith are also reissued in this series.

Das historische Buch konnen zahlreiche Rechtschreibfehler, fehlende Texte, Bilder, oder einen Index. Kaufer konnen eine kostenlose gescannte Kopie des Originals (ohne Tippfehler) durch den Verlag. 1836. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug: ... Menge. Die Fehler mussten also den ursprunglichen Steinhauern zugeschrieben werden, was noch unzulassiger ist. Es hatte diese Eigenthumlichkeit sich auch ohne Kenntniss des vollstandigen Alphabets entdecken lassen konnen; aber gerade die drei Namen Xerxes, Darius, Hystaspes boten kein deutliches Beispiel des Systems dar, weil theils andere Vocale als a in den Sylben waren (u, i, u), theils h und ein anderer Vocal folgte (in vis'tacpaha, darhawaus'), theils die Aussprache das a nicht unabweisbar fordert (darhawuse und darhwus'). Es ist das Ei des Columbus. Ich habe bis jetzt keine Erwahnung der Arbeiten de* Herrn St. Martin gethan; er hat einiges in dem fruhern Alphabete und auch dieses nur Einmal mit Recht geandert, ohne im Wesentlichen weiter zu kommen. Aus seinen Abhandlungen besitzen wir nur Auszuge *); ihr vollstandiger Abdruck steht in der Gesammtausgabe seiner Werke zu erwarten. Sein Alphabet hat unser verstorbener Landsmann Klaproth berichtigt herausgegeben und zwar naeh seiner Weise mit nicht geringer Zuversicht angepriesen **). Hr. St. Martin selbst giebt uns eine grosse Zurustung von allgemeinen einleitenden Erorterungen und macht nicht undeutlich Anspruche auf eine tiefere Kenntniss des Zends, als damals vorhanden war. Wenn die *) Im Journ. Asiat. Tom. II. '*) Apercu de l'origijie des diverses eeriturcs de l'ancien monde. Paris 1832. p. 62. Worter also wo moglich noch unzendischer werden, als sie vorher waren, hat es nicht dieselbe Entschuldigung. Auch er uberhauft sie mit Vocalen und wirft verschiedene Buchstaben zusammen, als Varianten eines und desselben. Lob verdient, dass er sich bescheidet, einige Zeichen als unentzif...

In this groundbreaking study, Michael Willis examines how the gods of early Hinduism came to be established in temples, how their cults were organized, and how the ruling elite supported their worship. Examining the emergence of these key historical developments in the fourth and fifth centuries, Willis combines Sanskrit textual evidence with archaeological data from inscriptions, sculptures, temples, and sacred sites. The centre-piece of this study is Udayagiri in central India, the only surviving imperial site of the Gupta dynasty. Through a judicious use of landscape archaeology and archaeo-astronomy, Willis reconstructs how Udayagiri was connected to the Festival of the Rainy Season and the Royal Consecration. Under Gupta patronage, these rituals were integrated into the cult of Vishnu, a deity regarded as the source of creation and of cosmic time. As special devotees of Vishnu, the Gupta kings used Udayagiri to advertise their unique devotional relationship with him. Through his meticulous study of the site, its sculptures and its inscriptions, Willis shows how the Guptas presented themselves as universal sovereigns and how they advanced new systems of religious patronage that shaped the world of medieval India.

It is widely accepted that the Viking Age (c. 800-1050) stimulated the development of long-distance, regional and local trade and exchange networks. The clearest archaeological evidence for these contacts is mainly in the form of silver artefacts predominantly found in hoards in Northern and Central Europe - the Baltic zone. However, beyond occasional national- or regional-level research, there have been no attempts at a historically guided comparative archaeological survey of the Baltic zone as a whole. By investigating silver hoards and the context of their deposition, Viking Silver, Hoards and Containers seeks to understand the variety of functions performed by hoards; the differences in function within regions; the hoards' relationship with trade; and the nature and function of emporia. It also examines the extent to which the findings mesh with literary evidence and the nature of the different societies benefiting from the influx of silver in the Viking Age. Crucially, the book features a catalogue, which provides a thorough overview and update of Baltic-zone hoards. Viking Silver, Hoards and Containers is intended for use by students of, and specialists in, early medieval, Viking and Slavic history and archaeology. However, it will also be a useful teaching resource for other general courses in archaeology, anthropology and material culture, numismatics, economic history, religious studies, GIS and statistics.

The decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs has enabled scholars to better understand Classic society, but many aspects of this civilization remain shrouded in mystery, particularly its economies and social structures. How did farmers, artisans, and rulers make a living in a tropical forest environment? In this study, Patricia McAnany tackles this question and presents the first comprehensive view of ancestral Maya economic practice. Bringing an archaeological approach to the topic, she demonstrates the vital role of ritual practice in indigenous ecologies, gendered labor, and the construction of colossal architecture. Examining Maya royalty as a kind of social speciation, McAnany also shows the fundamentality of social difference as well as the pervasiveness of artisan production and marketplaces in ancestral Maya societies. Her analysis of royal iconography and hieroglyphic texts provides evidence of a political economy dominated by tribute extraction, thus lifting the veil of opacity over the operation of palace economies. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this book situates Maya economies within contemporary social, political, and economic theories of social practice, gender, actor-networks, inalienable goods, materiality, social difference, indigenous ecologies, and strategies of state finance.

Mesoamerica is one of several cradles of civilization in the world. In this book, Robert M. Rosenswig proposes that we understand Early Formative Mesoamerica as an archipelago of complex societies that interacted with one another over long distances and that were separated by less sedentary peoples. These early 'islands' of culture shared an Olmec artistic aesthetic, beginning approximately 1250 BCE (uncalibrated), that first defined Mesoamerica as a culture area. Rosenswig frames the Olmec world from the perspective of the Soconusco area on Pacifica Chiapas and Guatemala. The disagreements about Early Formative society that have raged over the past thirty years focus on the nature of inter-regional interaction between San Lorenzo and other Early Formative regions. He evaluates these debates from a fresh theoretical perspective and integrates new data into an assessment of Soconusco society before, during, and after the apogee of the San Lorenzo polity.

Sir Arthur Evans's excavation at the Cretan site of Knossos from 1900 onwards uncovered a previously unknown civilization. His enthusiastic (though controversial) reconstructions of the site and its fresco decorations made it an attractive destination for travellers and tourists, and Evans thought a simple guidebook for visitors would be desirable alongside his own multi-volume work, The Palace of Minos (also reissued in this series). This was published in 1933 by John Pendlebury (1904-41), a brilliant young archaeologist later killed by German troops during the invasion of Crete in 1941. With a foreword by Evans, the handbook is in two parts: an architectural history of the Palace of Minos, and a guide to the site, with a note of the time needed to explore each building, maps showing the best trail to be followed, plans, and detailed descriptions. The book continues to be of value to both archaeologists and tourists.

This publication released to a wider audience the work on Assyrian inscriptions of Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810-95), who had begun his career in the East India Company in Persia and Afghanistan, where his exceptional linguistic skills were recognised. He had been studying the monumental, trilingual (in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian) Behistun inscription of Darius the Great since 1836, and, building on the earlier research of Georg Friedrich Grotefend, delivered a summary of his progress in decipherment to the Royal Asiatic Society early in 1850. He intended to follow it up with a longer book, but was anxious to gain credit for primacy (which was questioned at the time and still remains controversial), and so published this short work in March 1850. It states Rawlinson's theories, and offers a linguistic and archaeological background to his work, along with his interpretation of king lists and other inscriptions.

In this two-volume work, published in 1912, the Hungarian-born archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein (1862-1943) describes his second expedition to the deserts of Chinese Turkestan in 1906-8. (His account of his first expedition, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan (1903), is also reissued in this series.) Stein intended this account to be read by non-specialists, and, like his previous book, it is highly illustrated and full of interesting details about his journey and the people he met en route, as well as of the important archaeological discoveries which still link his name with the civilisation of this remote and dangerous area. In Volume 2, Stein describes the discovery of the caves near the great trading post of Dunhuang which contained - walled up and almost perfectly preserved - manuscripts, sculptures, silk cloths, and the Diamond Sutra, the earliest complete and dated example of a printed book, hidden by Buddhist monks nine hundred years previously.

The Assyriologist George Smith (1840-76) was trained originally as an engraver, but was enthralled by the discoveries of Layard and Rawlinson. He taught himself cuneiform script, and joined the British Museum as a 'repairer' of broken cuneiform tablets. Promotion followed, and after one of Smith's most significant discoveries among the material sent to the Museum - a Babylonian story of a great flood - he was sent to the Middle East, where he found more inscriptions which contained other parts of the epic tale of Gilgamesh. In 1875, he published a history of Assyria for the 'Ancient History from the Monuments' series. Using biblical accounts as well as the Akkadian documents in clay and stone then being excavated in the area, Smith traces the history of the Assyrian empire from its origins until the fall of Nineveh in 612 BCE. Several other books by Smith are also reissued in this series.

Research on early medieval Cyprus has focused on the late antique "golden age" (late fourth/early fifth to seventh century) and the so-called Byzantine "Reconquista" (post-AD 965) while overlooking the intervening period. This phase was characterized, supposedly, by the division of the political sovereignty between the Umayyads and the Byzantines, bringing about the social and demographic dislocation of the population of the island. This book proposes a different story of continuities and slow transformations in the fate of Cyprus between the late sixth and the early ninth centuries. Analysis of new archaeological evidence shows signs of a continuing link to Constantinople. Moreover, together with a reassessment of the literary evidence, archaeology and material culture help us to reappraise the impact of Arab naval raids and contextualize the confrontational episodes throughout the ebb and flow of Eastern Mediterranean history: the political influence of the Caliphate looked stronger in the second half of the seventh century, the administrative and ecclesiastical influence of the Byzantine empire was held sway from the beginning of the eighth to the twelfth century. Whereas the island retained sound commercial ties with the Umayyad Levant in the seventh and eighth centuries, at the same time politically and economically it remained part of the Byzantine sphere. This belies the idea of Cyprus as an independent province only loosely tied to Constantinople and allows us to draw a different picture of the cultural identities, political practices and hierarchy of wealth and power in Cyprus during the passage from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages.

In this survey of the burial and settlement evidence of late Iron Age Etruria, Corinna Riva offers a new reading of the socio-political transformations that led to the formation of urban centres in Tyrrhenian Central Italy. Through a close examination of burial ritual and the material culture associated with it, Riva traces the transformations of seventh-century elite funerary practices and the structuring of political power around these practices in Etruria, arguing that the tomb became the locus for the articulation of new forms of political authority at urban centres. Challenging established views that deem contact with eastern Mediterranean regions crucial to these developments, Riva offers a radically new interpretation of the so-called Orientalizing material culture, taking a long-term perspective on local changes and east-west contact across the Mediterranean.

This is an introduction to human prehistory written for complete beginners with a global perspective. It is written in a jargon-free style that covers 6 million years of the remote past from human origins to the first pre-industrial civilizations, balancing theoretical discussion with descriptions and analysis of major sites and cultural developments.

World Prehistory provides a unique and balanced narrative of what happened in the prehistoric past and why. The book is well worth acquiring, as it provides essential historical background to a wide variety of subjects, from written history and environmental studies to climate change. Chronological tables, numerous illustrations, guides to further reading, and stand-alone boxes on some archaeological methods, key sites, and some people of the past amplify much of the basic narrative.

This global prehistory is aimed at people with no background in archaeology, undergraduates at all levels, and participants in graduate seminars on a wide range of subjects. Numerous people with a general interest in archaeology and multidisciplinary history have acquired and enjoyed this book.

Table of Contents

Preface; Acknowledgments; A Note on Chronologies and Measurements; Part I Prehistory: 1. Introducing World Prehistory; Part II The World of the First Humans: 2 Human Origins; 3. African Exodus; Part III The Birth of the Modern World: 4 Diaspora, 5 The Origins of Food Production; 6 The Earliest Farmers; 7 Chiefs and Chiefdoms; Part IV The First States (Preindustrial Civilizations): 8 State-Organized Societies; 9 Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean World; 10 Egypt and Africa; 11 South, Southeast, and East Asia; PART V Preindustrial States in the Americas: 12 Lowland Mesoamerica; 13 Highland Mesoamerica; 14 Andean States; Epilogue; Glossary of Technical Terms; Glossary of Archaeological Sites and Cultural Terms; References; Index.

This volume contains 12 studies on political, social, economic, and religious aspects of the history of Central Asia and Iran in the period from the fourth century B.C.E. to the fifth century C.E. by leading specialists in the field. They interpret and reconstructing the region's past based on various kinds of evidence, including literary, archaeological, linguistic, and numismatic. Some papers present the findings of recent archaeological excavations in Old Nisa and Uzbekistan for the first time.

Before the Spanish Conquest and well into the eighteenth century, Mesoamerican peoples believed that time and space were contained in earthly and heavenly receptacles that were visualized metaphorically. This circumscribed space contained the abodes of the dead. There, deities and ancestral spirits could be revived and the living could communicate with them. In Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica, Amos Megged uncovers the missing links in Mesoamerican peoples quest for their collective past. Analyzing ancient repositories of knowledge, as well as social and religious practices, he uncovers the unique procedures and formulas by which social memory was communicated and how it operated in Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish conquest. He also explores how cherished and revived practices evolved, how they were adapted to changing circumstances, and how they helped various ethnic groups cope with the tribulations of colonization and Christianization. Megged s volume also suggests how social and cultural historians, ethnohistorians, and anthropologists can rethink indigenous representations of the past while taking into account the deep transformations in Mexican society during the colonial era."

Caribbean plantations and the forces that shaped them-slavery, sugar, capitalism, and the tropical, sometimes deadly environment-have been studied extensively. This volume turns the focus to the places and times where the rules of the plantation system did not always apply, including the interstitial spaces that linked enslaved Africans with their neighbors at other plantations. The essays also explore the lives of "poor whites," Afro-descendant members of military garrisons, and free people of color, demonstrating that binary models of black slaves and white planters do not fully encompass the diversity of identities before and after Emancipation. Employing innovative research tools and integrating data from Dominica, St. Lucia, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Barbados, Nevis, Montserrat, and the British Virgin Islands, these essays offer a deeper understanding of the complex world within and beyond the sprawling sugar estates.

The well-known list of "cradles of civilization" primary states from which all modern nation states ultimately derive, has traditionally been limited to Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica, and Andean South America. However, by drawing on archaeological and ethnohistorical sources, Robert J. Hommon demonstrates that Polynesia, with primary states in both Hawai`i and Tonga, should be added to that list. The Ancient Hawaiian State offers a history of the ancient Hawaiians' transformation of their Polynesian chiefdoms into primary state societies. The emergence of primary states is one of the most revolutionary transformations in human history, and Hawai`i's metamorphosis was so profound that in some ways the contact-era Hawaiian states bear a closer resemblance to our world than to that of their closely-related Eastern Polynesian contemporaries. In contrast to the other six regions, in which states emerged in the distant, proto- or pre-literate past, the transformation of Hawaiian states is documented in an extensive body of oral traditions preserved in written form, a rich literature of early post-contact eyewitness accounts by participants and Western visitors, as well as an extensive archaeological record. Tracing the roots and emergence of the Hawaiian states, this innovative study offers a detailed model that will advance the analysis of Polynesian political development and shed light on the nature and dynamics of primary state formation.

Encompassing a landmass greater than the rest of the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean combined, the Arabian peninsula remains one of the last great unexplored regions of the ancient world. This book provides the first extensive coverage of the archaeology of this region from c. 9000 to 800 BC. Peter Magee argues that a unique social system, which relied on social cohesion and actively resisted the hierarchical structures of adjacent states, emerged during the Neolithic and continued to contour society for millennia later. The book also focuses on how the historical context in which Near Eastern archaeology was codified has led to a skewed understanding of the multiplicity of lifeways pursued by ancient peoples living throughout the Middle East.

Originally published in 1906, this book by celebrated Classicist Jane Ellen Harrison (1850 1928) reviews Thucydides' account of Classical Athens in the light of contemporary excavations made in the city. The text is illustrated with photographs and drawings of the archaeological findings, and alternative opinions on the city's ancient structure are also considered. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Athens, Classical archaeology or the history of Classical scholarship."

eng-CADuring his spare time, William Baker Nickerson investigated sites from New England to the Midwest and into the Canadian Prairies. In the course of exploration, he created an elegant and detailed record of discoveries and developed methods which later archaeologists recognized as being ahead of their time. By middle age, he was en route to becoming a professional contract archaeologist. However, after a very good start, during World War I archaeological commissions disappeared and failed to recover for many years afterward. Consequently, in spite of heroic efforts, Nickerson was unable to restore his scientific career and died in obscurity. His life story spans the transition of North American archaeology from museums and historical societies to universities, throwing light on a phase of history that is little known.