One person's trash is another's treasure!

In his newly revised classic, All the Best Rubbish, Ivor Noel Hume traces the fascinating history of collecting from its recorded beginnings and describes the remarkable detective work that goes into establishing the probable facts about uncovered and often underappreciated treasures. Now expanded with hints, tips, and helpful information about antique-hunting online, All the Best Rubbish is the ideal book for the antiquarian or amateur, the historian or professional collector--for anyone who knows that there's no such thing as "just junk."

Noel Hume, former head of the Department of Archaeology for Colonial Williamsburg, has pursued bottles, pottery, clocks, and coins through junk shops, street markets, attics, and cellars on two continents. He's unearthed the most fascinating--and valuable--rubbish from the most unlikely places: the shores of the Thames in London; the lagoons of the Caribbean; the bottom of Martha Washington's well. Hume knows everything that's worth knowing about collecting--why we do it, what we can find, where we can find it, and what we can learn from it.

The Italian son of a barber. A failed hydraulic engineer. A giant who performed feats of strength and agility in the circus. Giovanni Belzoni (1778-1824) was all of these before going on to become one of the most controversial figures in the history of Egyptian archaeology. A man of exceptional size with an ego of comparable proportions, he procured for the British Museum some of its largest and still awe-inspiring treasures. Today, however, the typical museum visitor knows nothing of Belzoni, and many modern archaeologists dismiss him as an ignorant vandal. In this captivating new biography, Ivor Noel Hume re-creates an early nineteenth century in which there was no established archaeological profession, only enormous opportunity. Belzoni landed in Egypt, where he was unsuccessful in selling a hydraulic machine of his own invention, and came under the patronage of diplomat Henry Salt, who convinced him to travel to Thebes in search of artifacts. Among the many treasures Belzoni would bring back was the seven-ton stone head of Ramesses II, the ""Young Memnon."" The book includes gripping accounts of Belzoni's wildly productive, and physically brutal, expeditions, as well as an unforgettable portrait of his wife, Sarah, who suffered the hardships of the Egyptian deserts and later bore the brunt of the disillusionment that came with the declining popular perception of her husband. Including numerous illustrations, many in color, this volume brings one of archaeology's most fascinating figures vividly to life.

In The Virginia Adventure, Noel Hume turns his attention to the two earliest English settlements in Virginia, Roanoke and James Towne, with fascinating results. Combining information gathered through excavations of the sites with contemporary accounts from journals, letters, and official records of the period, the author illuminates the exploits of Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain John Smith, and Powhatan; the life and death of Pocahontas; and the dissapearance of the Roanoke colony.

Cited in virtually every colonial-era site study of North America, A Guide to Artifacts of Colonial America holds a place of honor among historical archaeologists. It is a classic, highly sought-after handbook for the professional archaeologist, museum curator, antiques dealer, collector, or social historian. Though first published more than thirty years ago, Ivor Noel Hume's guide continues to be the most useful and accurate reference on the identification of artifacts recovered from Anglo-American colonial sites. This edition contains a new preface, updated references, and corrections based on recent scholarship, in addition to the original 102 photographs and line drawings. With a list of forty-three categories, including buttons, cutlery, stoneware, and firearms, collectors and curators of early American artifacts will find this book insightful, informative, and indispensable. An acclaimed archaeologist and historian, Noel Hume understands the interests of both professionals and enthusiasts. He manages to combine out-of-the-ordinary information with a lively presentation. His extensive knowledge and experience make this richly detailed text communicate something beyond the facts-the reality of other times, places, and cultures.

The author describes his archeological excavation of a seventeenth-century English settlement in Virginia and his discovery of evidence of the early colonial way of life.

Ivor Noel Hume has devoted his life to uncovering countless lives that came before him. In "A Passion for the Past" the world-renowned archaeologist turns to his own life, sharing with the reader a story that begins amid the bombed-out rubble of post-World War II London and ends on North Carolina's Roanoke Island, where the history of British America began. Weaving the personal with the professional, this is the chronicle of an extraordinary life steered by coincidence scarcely believable even as fiction.

Born into the good life of pre-Depression England, Noel Hume was a child of the 1930s who had his silver spoon abruptly snatched away when the war began. By its end he was enduring a period of Dickensian poverty and clinging to aspirations of becoming a playwright. Instead, he found himself collecting antiquities from the shore of the river Thames and, stumbling upon this new passion, becoming an "accidental" archaeologist.

From those beginnings emerged a career that led Noel Hume into the depths of Roman London and, later, to Virginia's Colonial Williamsburg, where for thirty-five years he directed its department of archaeology. His discovery of nearby Martin's Hundred and its massacred inhabitants is perhaps Noel Hume's best-known achievement, but as these chapters relate, it was hardly his last, his pursuit of the past taking him to such exotic destinations as Egypt, Jamaica, Haiti, and to shipwrecks in Bermuda.

When the author began his career, historical archaeology did not exist as an academic discipline. It fell to Noel Hume's books, lectures, and television presentations to help bring it to the forefront of his profession, where it stands today. This story of a life, and a career, unlike any other reveals to us how the previously unimagined can come to seem beautifully inevitable.

Archaeologist and social historian Ivor Noel Hume brings British history to life through his accessible story about the everyday ceramic objects he and his late wife collected over a 40-year period. If These Pots Could Talk presents "a panoramic view of pottery in Britain and her colonies from the landing of the Romans to the bad intentions of the Germans in 1939." Beginning as a novice at London's Guildhall Museum in the immediate postwar years, Noel Hume shares his passion for reconstructing lives from bits and pieces of crockery. He describes in vivid detail the common household pottery he unearthed with a bright graduate of Bristol University and the four decades of collecting (and marriage) that followed. Concentrating on earthenwares, stonewares, and porcelains commonly found in archaeological excavations but uncommonly encountered in decorative arts exhibits, his book runs the gamut from burial urns and chamber pots to wine cups and witch bottles.
Cultural and even political history form the warp and weft of the narrative. Written in a personal and often humorous style, this gorgeous and hefty volume will appeal to nonspecialists and experts alike. Wonderful color photographs, largely by noted photographer Gavin Ashworth, enhance the historical and personal commentary. Part catalog, part memoir, If These Pots Could Talk is a beautiful tribute to the richness of collecting and the rewards of a true partnership.