Originally published in 1935, this book presents the content of the Frazer Lecture for that year, which was delivered by Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner at Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Egyptology, ancient history and archaeology.

Originally published in 1947, this book presents the content of Stephen Glanville's inaugural lecture upon taking up the position of Professor of Egyptology at Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Egyptology, ancient history and archaeology.

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.

The Egyptologist Eric Peet (1882–1934), whose works on the prehistory of Italy and the cemeteries of Abydos are also reissued in this series, published this book, based on a series of three lectures delivered at the British Academy in 1929 on ancient literature of the Near East, in 1931. It examines the claims of Egyptian and Babylonian literature - rediscovered less than a century earlier - to be considered as the influential forerunners of the Hebrew literature of the Old Testament, composed up to a millennium later, and, by this argument, not suddenly arising as an isolated phenomenon. As Peet remarks in his first lecture, his aim is to persuade Old Testament scholars that 'Egyptian literature is worthy of far more attention … than it has hitherto received'. Further work on ancient Egyptian grammar, and better translations as the texts become better understood, are, he believes, a prerequisite for useful comparative analysis.

The epic tale of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest stories in world literature, composed more than four thousand years ago. It survives in fragmentary form in various cuneiform tablets. This 1920 publication presents transliterations and translations of Old Babylonian fragments found since the discovery in the 1850s of shattered clay tablets in the library of King Ashurbanipal (668–627 BCE) at Nineveh by A. H. Layard, and painstakingly pieced together by George Smith (several of whose works have been reissued in this series). Its American editors, Morris Jastrow Jr (1861–1921) and Albert T. Clay (1866–1925) discuss the complicated history of the epic, and the new information gained from more recently discovered sources, chiefly the two related items known respectively as the Pennsylvania and Yale tablets. The epic remains of interest to biblical scholars as well as Assyriologists, since its description of a great flood is reminiscent of the story in Genesis.

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.

The traveller and archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows (1799–1860) made several trips through Asia Minor. His careful observations of ancient cities that were at that time unknown to Europeans captured the attention of readers of his published journals and fuelled the British Museum's desire to acquire antiquities from the region. This brief work, first published in 1843, seeks to explain and justify how Fellows shipped dozens of cases of sculptures and architectural remains to Malta from Xanthos, an important city in ancient Lycia. It includes correspondence relating to the practicalities of carrying out the expedition and securing permission to do so from the Ottoman authorities. Fellows was later knighted for his role in these acquisitions, though controversy surrounds their removal. His well-illustrated accounts of his two previous trips to Asia Minor are also reissued in this series.

This work, first published in 1853, grew from a paper describing the crossing of two Roman roads at Cambridge, and the small Roman fort at Grantchester. However, other Roman sites were added to the investigation, and the book came to encompass all the Roman and other ancient roads of Cambridgeshire, as well as the locations where Roman coins and other remains had been found. The author, Charles Cardale Babington (1808–95), is best remembered as the pupil and assistant of John Stevens Henslow and as his successor in the chair of botany at Cambridge. However, Babington was also keenly interested in archaeology, and this fascinating work of local history is the first substantial account of Roman Cambridgeshire, describing not only the courses of the various roads but also finds such as the Roman villa at Comberton, the Roman cemetery at Trumpington, and large numbers of individual coins and other artefacts.

Begun in 1874 and published in 1880, a detailed survey of the stones of Stonehenge was one of the earliest works of William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853–1942), the energetic archaeologist who is remembered as a pioneering Egyptologist. It is reissued here alongside Sir Richard Colt Hoare's 1829 analysis of the barrows surrounding Stonehenge, thus giving modern readers a valuable two-part snapshot of nineteenth-century investigations into this famous site. Hoare (1758–1838), a Wiltshire baronet with a keen interest in archaeology and topography, conducted excavations on the site of the stones in the early 1800s, which were later referred to by Petrie, whose measurements were much more accurate (up to one tenth of an inch). Petrie's numbering system for the stones, as set out in this publication, is still in use today. Many of his groundbreaking works in Egyptology are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Charles Roach Smith (1806–90) had a prosperous career as a druggist. His shop was in the City of London, then undergoing major excavation and redevelopment, and he began to collect the artefacts being uncovered around him. With a widening interest in all aspects of the past, Smith began to publish notes on his collection as well as antiquarian observations. (His Illustrations of Roman London is also reissued in this series.) This pamphlet, intended as a guide for travellers, was published in 1851, because 'no opportunity should be omitted to draw attention to the ancient remains of neighbouring countries, in order to understand properly our own'. He had spent the summer of 1850 travelling on foot and by coach through the Roman-founded cities of the Rhine and Moselle valleys. His descriptions and drawings of the often spectacular remains are interspersed with comments on the present-day inhabitants of the Rhineland.

Appointed Britain's consul-general in Egypt in 1815, Henry Salt (1780–1827) involved himself deeply in the excavation of several historic sites and the collection of numerous antiquities. The most notable of these, found at Thebes, was the colossal bust of Rameses II which was acquired by the British Museum and is believed to have inspired Shelley's 'Ozymandias'. This 1825 publication, featuring Salt's careful reproductions and explanations of various inscriptions, made a valuable contribution to the understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Following the innovative work on the Rosetta Stone carried out by Thomas Young, and the celebrated decipherment presented in 1822 by Jean-François Champollion, Salt helped to further elucidate the hieroglyphic alphabet, although later research has disproved some of his conclusions. A postscript notes how Champollion's 1824 Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens (also reissued in this series) confirms several names of Egyptian gods and pharaohs which Salt had independently deciphered.

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845–1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. This 1894 work, published by the Religious Tract Society, is an introduction for a popular readership to the world of ancient Assyria. Beginning with the geography of Mesopotamia and with the early archaeological discoveries in the region, Sayce next describes the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions and tablets, and the knowledge gained from them, especially about the history of the region, and government and organisation, before describing religion, literature, and what can be deduced about everyday life. An appendix gives weights and measures, lists of kings and gods, and a chronological table linking events known from the archaeological record to accounts in the Old Testament.

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.

In 1794, Uvedale Price (1747–1829) published his seminal essay on the application of techniques found in landscape painting to the art of landscape gardening. Considered by many to be the successor to Capability Brown, whose approach to landscape design was rejected in no uncertain terms by Price and his followers, Humphry Repton (1752–1818) wrote a letter to Price, with whom he had previously enjoyed good relations, in which he contested certain points in the essay - in particular the necessity of adhering so closely to the principles of landscape painting in the creation of a garden. This reissue is of the 1798 second edition of Price's reply to Repton's criticisms, and forms a supplement to Price's essay of 1794 (also reissued in this series). Repton's original letter is included at the beginning of the text.

Born in Scotland, James Fergusson (1808–86) spent ten years as an indigo planter in India before embarking upon a second career as an architectural historian. Despite his lack of formal training, he became an expert in the field of Indian architecture. The topography and temples of ancient Jerusalem also fascinated him. This 1865 collection of two lectures summarises his controversial topographical and architectural argument that the location where Constantine erected the original Holy Sepulchre was the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount. Fergusson then describes the Temple in its successive forms, arguing against the view that the rock known as the foundation stone was the site of the Jewish altar. The work is illustrated throughout with plans and drawings. Fergusson's Cave Temples of India (1880) and the two-volume revised edition of his History of Indian and Eastern Architecture (1910) are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

The antiquarian William J. Thoms (1803–85) is probably best remembered today for founding the journal Notes and Queries and for having coined the term 'folk lore'. He undertook the translation of this work by the Danish archaeologist Jens Worsaae (1821–85) because he felt (as Worsaae says himself) that 'the primeval national antiquities of the British islands have never hitherto been brought into a scientific arrangement'. Believing that this had arisen partly because of the difficulty of distinguishing between some of the many different cultures in Britain's past, Thoms also felt that British interpretations of finds were too frequently beset by 'fanciful theories'. Cultural ties between Britain and Denmark during the Dark Ages meant that finds in Denmark could illuminate British discoveries, and vice versa: Worsaae's work could therefore guide future excavations in Britain. Highly influential and illustrated with woodcuts, this translation first appeared in 1849.

This 1836 work by Samuel Sharpe (1799–1881) is the first of two volumes on the history of ancient Egypt; the second, dealing with the Ptolemaic period, is also reissued in this series. From a banking family, Sharpe was fascinated by Thomas Young's and Champollion's work in deciphering the hieroglyphs. He taught himself Coptic, and compiled his own hieroglyphic vocabulary lists. His facility for decipherment was assisted by a natural gift for solving cryptograms, but his inferences sometimes led him into error. His objective in this book is 'to collect out of the writings of the ancients every particular relating to the History of Egypt', marshalling ancient authorities including the Old Testament, Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus and the Ptolemaic priest Manetho, whose division of the rulers into dynasties is still relied on. The second part of the book uses this evidence to discuss Egyptian life, language, beliefs and customs.

The son of a Turin lawyer, Bartolomeo Gastaldi (1818–79) initially followed in his father's footsteps but then abandoned the law to pursue his passion for geology and palaeontology. Later one of the founders of the Italian Alpine Club, Gastaldi was especially interested in the geology and glaciology of the Alps in his native Piedmont. The mineral gastaldite is named after him. This work, first published in Italian in 1862, is reissued here in the 1865 English translation prepared by Charles Harcourt Chambers (1826–76) for the Anthropological Society of London. Its importance lies in the meticulous descriptions, by Gastaldi and others, of the human remains and artefacts discovered at Stone Age and Bronze Age settlements on the site of lakes and peat bogs to the south of the Alps. Featuring engraved illustrations throughout, the work also includes Gastaldi's summary of discoveries since his book's first appearance.

In the mountainous border region between France and Italy lies the Vallée des Merveilles. Still surprisingly remote, and dominated by Mont Bégo, it contains alpine meadows, rare flora and fauna, spectacular glaciated rock formations, and over 35,000 Bronze Age rock engravings that are only free of snow for a few months of the year. Though this major archaeological site was mentioned in print around 1650, the first thorough guidebook was published in 1913 by Clarence Bicknell (1842–1918), a Cambridge graduate and Anglican clergyman who had settled on the Riviera around 1880. Bicknell published several books on the botany of the region, but it was not until the 1890s that he began in earnest to explore the petroglyphs, a project he continued into his seventies. He built up a collection of over 12,000 drawings, rubbings and photographs, which form the basis of the 46 plates that illustrate this book.

In the preface to this 1904 work by Leonard King (1869–1919) of the British Museum's department of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities, he states that the text it presents 'is of great historical value, inasmuch as it supplements our knowledge of the history of Assyria and her relations with Babylonia during the early part of the thirteenth century BC'. The tablet containing the text was buried under the wall of a city founded by King Tukulti-Ninib I (transliterated as Tukulti-Ninurta by modern scholars), to commemorate its building and his previous military achievements, which included the invasion of Babylonia. This account confirms earlier documents, and gives more detail on the chronology of a crucial period in the ancient history of the Near East. The book offers a lengthy introduction on the tablet and on the tradition of such foundation documents, as well as the cuneiform text and a parallel translation, along with an appendix of related documents.

The son of an Italian historian, Paul-Émile Botta (1802–70) served France as a diplomat and archaeologist. While posted as consul to Mosul in Ottoman Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), he excavated several sites, becoming in 1843 the first archaeologist to uncover an Assyrian palace at Khorsabad, where Sargon II had ruled in the eighth century BCE. As nobody could yet read the cuneiform inscriptions, Botta thought he had discovered Nineveh, and an enthused French government financed the recording and collecting of numerous artefacts. Many of the marvellous sculptures were put on display in the Louvre. Botta devoted himself to studying the inscriptions, and this 1848 publication, a contribution towards the later deciphering of the Akkadian language, presents a tentative catalogue of cuneiform characters that appear to be used interchangeably. Of related interest, Henry Rawlinson's Commentary on the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria (1850) is also reissued in this series.

The feminist, medievalist and political theorist Lina Eckenstein (1857–1931) spent the excavation seasons from 1903 to 1906 working with Flinders Petrie (whose wife Hilda was a close friend) at Saqqara, Abydos and elsewhere. This 1921 publication was inspired by her experiences at the site of Serabit in the Sinai peninsula (Petrie's account of the excavation is also reissued in this series). Eckenstein describes it as a 'little history which will, I trust, appeal to those who take an interest in the reconstruction of the past and in the successive stages of religious development'. The narrative begins in the prehistoric period, suggesting that the inhospitable landscape (caused by ancient deforestation) and climate dissuaded large-scale permanent settlement until the first hermit and monastic communities of the Christian era (although the Egyptians had been drawn there by resources of turquoise and copper), and continues down to the nineteenth century.

M. R. James (1862–1936) is probably best remembered as a writer of ghost stories, but he was also an outstanding palaeographer and scholar of medieval literature. He served both as Provost of King's College, Cambridge, and as Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum: many of his stories reflect his background. This 1895 work on the abbey of Bury St Edmunds, one of the richest Benedictine houses in England before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, is in two parts, on the abbey's library and on the church. James describes his efforts to reconstruct the content of the library from catalogues and lists, and from the dispersed books themselves. Work on the library led to a study of the buildings of the abbey, as described in surviving accounts from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century. This engaging account of an important institution will be of interest to bibliographers and students of medieval history.

While working as a Congregational minister in England, Norman de Garis Davies (1865–1941) developed an interest in Egyptology. In 1897 he joined Flinders Petrie's excavations at Dendera as a copyist of inscriptions and sculptures. He did further work for the Egypt Exploration Fund, producing many volumes of archaeological surveys, one of which won him the Leibniz medal of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. From 1907 he worked for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, together with his wife Nina. Published in 1901, this highly illustrated work surveys the tombs of the important burial site at El-Sheikh Said in Upper Egypt, where many of the governors of the 15th nome had been buried since the time of the Old Kingdom. Davies reproduces the tombs' hieroglyphic inscriptions and the bas-reliefs, as well as providing archaeological plans. His two-volume Rock Tombs of Deir el Gebrâwi (1902) is also reissued in this series.

While working as a Congregational minister in England, Norman de Garis Davies (1865–1941) developed an interest in Egyptology. In 1897 he joined Flinders Petrie's excavations at Dendera as a copyist of inscriptions and sculptures. He did further work for the Egypt Exploration Fund, producing many volumes of archaeological surveys, which won him the Leibniz medal of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. From 1907 he worked for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, together with his wife Nina. Highly illustrated, this two-volume 1902 publication covers the tombs of the important Old Kingdom necropolis at Deir el-Gabrawi, where many of the governors of the Upper Egyptian 12th nome were buried. Volume 2 covers the northern group of tombs, including that of the nomarch Zau. Davies reproduces the tomb art and hieroglyphic inscriptions, as well as providing archaeological plans. His Rock Tombs of Sheikh Saïd (1901) is also reissued in this series.

While working as a Congregational minister in England, Norman de Garis Davies (1865–1941) developed an interest in Egyptology. In 1897 he joined Flinders Petrie's excavations at Dendera as a copyist of inscriptions and sculptures. He did further work for the Egypt Exploration Fund, producing many volumes of archaeological surveys, which won him the Leibniz medal of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. From 1907 he worked for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, together with his wife Nina. Highly illustrated, this two-volume 1902 publication covers the tombs of the important Old Kingdom necropolis at Deir el-Gabrawi, where many of the governors of the Upper Egyptian 12th nome were buried. Volume 1 covers the southern group of tombs, including that of the nomarch Aba. Davies reproduces the tomb art and hieroglyphic inscriptions, as well as providing archaeological plans. His Rock Tombs of Sheikh Saïd (1901) is also reissued in this series.

While working as a Congregational minister in England, Norman de Garis Davies (1865–1941) developed an interest in Egyptology. In 1897 he joined Flinders Petrie's excavations at Dendera as a copyist of inscriptions and sculptures. He did further work for the Egypt Exploration Fund, producing many volumes of archaeological surveys, which won him the Leibniz medal of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. This two-volume work, published 1900–1, describes a complex of tombs at Saqqara, famous for the quality of their incised stone wall-carvings and inscriptions. Dating from the 5th Dynasty, many of the inscriptions had been revealed by excavations in the nineteenth century, but Davies hoped that his investigations might reveal more decorated chambers. Volume 2 describes the mastaba tomb of Akhethetep. The colour images and larger illustrations can be downloaded and viewed from http://www.cambridge.org/9781108083706.

While working as a Congregational minister in England, Norman de Garis Davies (1865–1941) developed an interest in Egyptology. In 1897 he joined Flinders Petrie's excavations at Dendera as a copyist of inscriptions and sculptures. He did further work for the Egypt Exploration Fund, producing many volumes of archaeological surveys, which won him the Leibniz medal of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. This two-volume work, published 1900–1, describes a complex of tombs at Saqqara, famous for the quality of their incised stone wall-carvings and inscriptions. Dating from the 5th Dynasty, many of the inscriptions had been revealed by excavations in the nineteenth century, but Davies hoped that his investigations might reveal more decorated chambers. Volume 1 describes the chapel of Ptahhetep. The colour images and larger illustrations can be downloaded and viewed from http://www.cambridge.org/9781108083690.

This 1838 work by Samuel Sharpe (1799–1881) is the second of two volumes on the history of ancient Egypt; the first, dealing with the earlier period, is also reissued in this series. From a banking family, Sharpe was fascinated by Young's and Champollion's work in deciphering the hieroglyphs. He taught himself Coptic, and compiled his own hieroglyphic vocabulary lists. His facility for decipherment was assisted by a natural gift for solving cryptograms, but his inferences sometimes led him into error. This book, in which Sharpe follows his earlier technique of using inscriptions as well as historical works as sources, begins with a survey of the history of Egypt up to the time of Alexander the Great; the interested reader is referred to Sharpe's earlier volume for more details. He then surveys the Ptolemaic era by reigns, ending with the battle of Actium and the conquest of Egypt by Augustus.

Oimenepthah I, better known to us as Seti I, was regarded as a great pharaoh by his contemporaries, although his son Ramesses II would claim greater renown. Seti's tomb was discovered by Belzoni in 1817 and was the first to be found to have extensive decorations throughout. The huge alabaster coffin found in the tomb was sold to Sir John Soane, who held a three-day party upon its arrival at his London house, where it can still be seen. Written by the noted Egyptologist Samuel Sharpe (1799–1881), this illustrated description of the intricately decorated sarcophagus was published in 1864. By the time of his death, Sharpe was regarded in Britain as one of the most important figures in helping to popularise all things Egyptian. With the artist and sculptor Joseph Bonomi (1796–1878), who provided the drawings here, he collaborated in organising the Egyptian court at the Crystal Palace in 1854.

While working as a Congregational minister in England, Norman de Garis Davies (1865–1941) developed an interest in Egyptology. In 1897 he joined Flinders Petrie's excavations at Dendera as a copyist of inscriptions and sculptures. He did further work for the Egypt Exploration Fund, producing many volumes of archaeological surveys, which won him the Leibniz medal of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. This 1913 work describes five tombs of named individuals in the Theban necropolis, some previously partially excavated. For each, Davies supplies a description of the architecture, the artefacts found inside, and the paintings and inscriptions which covered the walls (the colour images and larger illustrations can be downloaded and viewed from http://www.cambridge.org/9781108083683). Translations and interpretations of the inscriptions are also provided, along with the various pieces of evidence by which each tomb can be dated. Other site reports by Davies are also reissued in this series.

Richard Inwards (1840–1937) won renown as the author of the highly popular Weather Lore (also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). For many years he worked as a mine manager, and in 1866, while working in Bolivia, he visited the site of Tiwanaku. Although the ruins of this once great city were first described by the conquistadores, it was not until the nineteenth century, with the development of more rigorous archaeological methods, that the site began to be more fully studied. Although published in 1884, this brief account is based on Inwards' 1866 visit, and so is contemporaneous with the work there by E. G. Squier. Pre-dating many of the earliest studies, the book is well illustrated with sketches and plans. The text describes the structures that Inwards observed, provides current thinking as to their possible purpose and original characteristics, and also offers remarks on the local people and culture of the present day.

Reginald Campbell Thompson (1876–1941), grandson of the mathematician Augustus De Morgan, studied oriental languages at Cambridge, and in 1899 began his career in the British Museum's department of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities. He participated in excavations at Nineveh and Carchemish with colleagues including Leonard William King and David George Hogarth (whose works are also reissued in this series). Thompson's later publications included a verse translation of The Epic of Gilgamish, and studies of ancient science. Published in 1903–4, this two-volume work made a substantial contribution to modern knowledge of ancient Babylonian demonology and magical practices. Volume 2 focuses on purification rituals, protection against disease, and descriptions of supernatural beings, but also contains additional protective charms against evil spirits. The work includes transliterations and explanatory notes, and was designed to accompany earlier British Museum publications of cuneiform texts from the seventh-century BCE Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh.

The Silesian-born art historian Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941) was a controversial scholar in his own time and remains a problematic figure in the historiography of art. His acrimonious disputes with his contemporaries divided the art history department at the University of Vienna. He was also anti-Semitic, regarding late antique art as decadent and the Middle Eastern influences he discerned in it as pernicious. Nevertheless, he was one of the earliest art historians to step outside the Eurocentric mainstream and travel to remote locations to study artworks almost unknown in the West. In this short, provocative study, originally published in 1901 following a visit to the royal museum in Berlin, he argued that early medieval art and architecture owed as much to the Middle East as to ancient Greece and Rome. Each chapter focuses on a particular early Christian site or artefact, with detailed analysis, illustrations, and comparisons with other works.

George Petrie (1790–1866) grew up in Dublin, where he trained as an artist. He became fascinated by Irish antiquities and travelled around the country studying ancient sites while working for the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy. He won awards for his publications on art and architecture, including the influential The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, Anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion (1845), which is also reissued in this series. This collection of Irish-language inscriptions was edited after Petrie's death by Margaret Stokes (1832–1900), the archaeologist daughter of his friend William Stokes, and published in two volumes between 1872 and 1878. Volume 1 is devoted to the important early medieval monastery at Clonmacnoise. It opens with an essay on the historical background, and contains drawings of over 170 inscriptions connected with the monastery. Each is accompanied by notes on its subject, date, script, decoration and linguistic features.

Xenophon's account of the homeward march of the 'Ten Thousand Greeks' in the army of Cyrus of Persia, after his death at the battle of Cunaxa in 401 BCE, describes one of the most famous feats of ancient warfare. The troops had to travel over difficult and (to them) unknown terrain in Assyria and Armenia, with their generals murdered and their ranks constantly harassed by the Persian army and hostile natives. After many months, the depleted band of about 6,000 arrived at the Black Sea coast near Trebizond. This commentary on the Anabasis was published in 1844 by William Ainsworth (1807–96), who used his knowledge of the area, drawn from two expeditions in the 1830s, to discuss the route, the terrain, and the difficulties of living off the land which the Greeks would have encountered. Both of Ainsworth's earlier travel narratives are also reissued in this series.

In 1722, on Easter Sunday, Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen became the first European to visit the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui. He named it Easter Island. Decades later, concerned that the British intended to establish a Pacific base, the Spanish ordered an expedition to the South Pacific from Peru. Felipe González de Ahedo (1702–92) landed on Easter Island in November 1770 and claimed it for the Spanish crown. These English translations of the first-hand accounts from these two expeditions were prepared by the antiquarian and bibliophile Bolton Corney (1784–1870) and published for the Hakluyt Society in 1908. The reports of the first European impressions of the enormous moai make clear their wonder at the mysterious monolithic statues, and their incredulity that the island inhabitants had the means to carve and move such structures. This illustrated work will be of interest to historians of early exploration in the Pacific.

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 had almost completed this work on the surviving cuneiform texts mentioning the famous Assyrian ruler Sennacherib: it was completed by A. H. Sayce and published in 1878. Each text or fragment is presented with a transliteration and translation, and notes by Smith put the material into context. Other works by Smith and Sayce are also reissued in this series.

The decipherment of the ancient cuneiform scripts was one of the major breakthroughs in nineteenth-century archaeology and linguistics. Among the scholars working on Old Persian was Christian Lassen (1800–76), professor of Sanskrit at Bonn. Lassen's book on cuneiform inscriptions from Persepolis appeared in 1836, a month before his friend Eugène Burnouf independently published very similar conclusions. Lassen's account gives vivid insights into the detective work involved, as he painstakingly compares individual words and grammatical forms with their Avestan and Sanskrit equivalents, and proposes sounds for the symbols. The book uses a specially designed cuneiform font, and credits the printer, Georgi of Bonn. This Cambridge Library Collection volume also includes a short monograph on Old Persian phonology published in Berlin in 1847 by the Assyriologist Julius Oppert (1825–1905). Oppert revisits Lassen's conclusions in the light of Henry Creswicke Rawlinson's important 1846 memoir on the trilingual Behistun inscription.

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845–1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. In this 1907 work, based on lectures delivered in Edinburgh in the previous year, he considers the state of archaeological knowledge of Babylonia and Assyria, which he describes as 'miserably deficient', and in particular the paradox of a huge number of cuneiform tablets in various languages drawn from many sites at which the original excavation had not provided an adequate context. Beginning with the history of the decipherment of cuneiform, Sayce goes on to describe what the tablets reveal of political and trade interactions among the different nations of the Near East and Asia Minor, and the relevance of these discoveries to Old Testament studies.

In this book, Justin Jennings argues that globalization is not just a phenomenon limited to modern times. Instead he contends that the globalization of today is just the latest in a series of globalizing movements in human history. Using the Uruk, Mississippian, and Wari civilizations as case studies, Jennings examines how the growth of the world's first great cities radically transformed their respective areas. The cities required unprecedented exchange networks, creating long-distance flows of ideas, people, and goods. These flows created cascades of interregional interaction that eroded local behavioral norms and social structures. New, hybrid cultures emerged within these globalized regions. Although these networks did not span the whole globe, people in these areas developed globalized cultures as they interacted with one another. Jennings explores how understanding globalization as a recurring event can help in the understanding of both the past and the present.

After the success of his 1851 book on the Roman Wall (also reissued in this series), in 1863 John Collingwood Bruce (1805–92) published this shorter work, intended as 'a guide to pilgrims journeying along the Barrier of the Lower Isthmus'. Designed 'for the field, not the library table', it sought 'to inform the traveller what he is to look for, and to assist him in examining it'. Bruce first gives a short history of the wall, including medieval and more recent accounts, and then an overview of the 73-mile structure itself, from Wallsend in the east to Bowness in the west. The remainder of the book, illustrated with maps and line engravings, leads the traveller from section to section, noting details such as the re-use of Roman masonry in more recent buildings. This guide was enormously popular, and newly revised versions continue to be published in the twenty-first century.

Global in perspective and covering over four million years of history, this accessible volume provides a chronological account of both the development of the human race and the order in which modern societies have made discoveries about their ancient past. Beginning deep in prehistory, it takes in all the great archaeological sites of the world as it advances to the present day. A masterful combination of succinct analysis and driving narrative, Archaeology: The Whole Story also addresses the questions that inevitably arise as we gradually learn more about the history of our species: what are we? Where did we come from? What inspired us to start building, writing and all the other activities that we traditionally regard as exclusively human? A concluding section explains how we know what we know: for example, how seventeen prehistoric shrines were discovered around Stonehenge using magnetometers, ground-penetrating radars, and 3D laser scanners; and how DNA analysis enabled us to identify some bones discovered beneath a car park in Leicester as the remains of a fifteenth-century king of England. Written by an international team of archaeological experts and richly illustrated throughout, Archaeology: The Whole Story offers an unparalleled insight into the origins of humankind. Table of Contents Introduction; • 1. Deep Prehistory – From Apes to Modern Humans • 2. From Hunters to Farmers • 3. The Bronze Age and the Rise of Civilizations • 4. The Iron Age and the Ancient World • 5. The Medieval World • 6. The Modern World • 7. How Archaeology Works

This book examines the organization of specialized salt production at Zhongba, one of the most important prehistoric sites in the Three Gorges of China's Yangzi River valley. Rowan K. Flad demonstrates that salt production emerged in the second millennium BCE and developed into a large-scale, intense activity. As the intensity of this activity increased during the early Bronze Age, production became more coordinated, perhaps by an emergent elite who appear to have supported their position of authority by means of divination and the control of ritual knowledge. This study explores evidence of these changes in ceramics, the layout of space at the site and animal remains. It synthesizes the data retrieved from years of excavation, showing not only the evolution of production methods, but also the emergence of social hierarchy in the Three Gorges region over two millennia.

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845–1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. This work in 'The Semitic Series', intended to present 'a knowledge of the more important facts' in the history of the Near Eastern civilisations, was published in 1900. Sayce's account begins with the geographical and historical background, and then surveys life in the cities, from the family and its home to the government, the law and the army, economic issues such as slavery, prices and banking, the extent and relevance of literacy, and the importance of religion. Scholarly, but written for a popular audience, this work remains of relevance to anyone interested in studying the everyday lives of ordinary people in this ancient society.

Archibald Henry Sayce (1845–1933) became interested in Middle Eastern languages and scripts while still a teenager. Old Persian and Akkadian cuneiform had recently been deciphered, and popular enthusiasm for these discoveries was running high when Sayce began his academic career at Oxford in 1869. In this 1895 work, he considers the history of the Holy Land in the context of the flood of new documentary and archaeological material which had come to light in the course of the nineteenth century. Sayce's approach opposed the 'higher criticism' which sought to demonstrate that the stories of the Old Testament should not be interpreted literally; in his opinion, 'in the narrative of the Pentateuch we have history and not fiction', and he believed that archaeological discoveries supported his view. Although this approach was already outdated, his reconstruction of the history of the ancient Near East remains of interest to historians of archaeology.

Reginald Campbell Thompson (1876–1941), grandson of the mathematician Augustus De Morgan, studied oriental languages at Cambridge, and in 1899 began his career in the British Museum's department of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities. He participated in excavations at Nineveh and Carchemish with colleagues including Leonard William King and David George Hogarth (whose works are also reissued in this series). Thompson's later publications included a verse translation of The Epic of Gilgamish, and studies of ancient science. Published in 1903–4, this two-volume work made a substantial contribution to modern knowledge of ancient Babylonian demonology and magical practices. Volume 1 focuses on tablets produced in the seventh century BCE to record protective spells against evil spirits, and exorcism rituals. The work includes transliterations and explanatory notes, and was designed to accompany earlier British Museum publications of cuneiform texts from the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh.

First published in 1930, this book collects all of the ancient Egyptian objects dating from before the Twenty Seventh Dynasty that were known to have been found at Greek archaeological sites prior to original publication. The book groups the items by find site, and photographs of many of the objects are included at the end of the text. The result is an interesting look at the material presence of ancient Egypt in the Aegean in the formative years of Greek civilization, without drawing any firm conclusions from the evidence provided.

Joseph Anderson (1832–1916), curator of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, delivered the Rhind lectures of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland from 1879 to 1882 as a sequence on the ancient history of Scotland, and subsequently published them in book form. His lectures on early Christian Scotland were published in two highly illustrated volumes in 1881, and begin with a consideration of the materials and methods of archaeology before describing the material remains of church buildings (and the related round towers found in both Scotland and Ireland), and island monasteries and hermitages. Volume 1 continues with an examination of artefacts of the Celtic church. The characteristic art of illuminated manuscript books such as the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells is discussed, as are the numerous surviving holy bells and reliquaries, and the characteristic stone crosses which still dot the northern landscape.

Joseph Anderson (1832–1916), curator of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, delivered the Rhind lectures of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland from 1879 to 1882 as a sequence on the ancient history of Scotland, and subsequently published them in book form, in reverse chronological order. His lectures on early Christian Scotland were published in two highly illustrated volumes in 1881. Volume 2 considers the apparently secular remains of decorative metalwork (including the superb gold and silver, jewel-inlaid brooches of the period) and carved stone monuments, but emphasises the lack of distinction between ecclesiastical and non-ecclesiastical (a standing stone may have a cross on one side and a secular scene on the other), while providing insights into an elaborate symbolism, surviving in part from pagan times. Two final lectures describe inscriptions in Roman, runic, Celtic and Ogham scripts. Anderson's other Rhind lectures are also reissued in this series.

In this worldwide survey, Clive Gamble explores the evolution of the human imagination, without which we would not have become a global species. He sets out to determine the cognitive and social basis for our imaginative capacity and traces the evidence back into deep human history. He argues that it was the imaginative ability to 'go beyond' and to create societies where people lived apart yet stayed in touch that made us such effective world settlers. To make his case Gamble brings together information from a wide range of disciplines: psychology, cognitive science, archaeology, palaeoanthropology, archaeogenetics, geography, quaternary science and anthropology. He presents a novel deep history that combines the archaeological evidence for fossil hominins with the selective forces of Pleistocene climate change, engages with the archaeogeneticists' models for population dispersal and displacement, and ends with the Europeans' rediscovery of the deep history settlement of the Earth.

The Colonial Caribbean is an archaeological analysis of the Jamaican plantation system at the turn of the nineteenth century. Focused specifically on coffee plantation landscapes and framed by Marxist theory, the analysis considers plantation landscapes using a multiscalar approach to landscape archaeology. James A. Delle considers spatial phenomena ranging from the diachronic settlement pattern of the island as a whole to the organization of individual house and yard areas located within the villages of enslaved workers. Delle argues that a Marxist approach to landscape archaeology provides a powerful theoretical framework to understand how the built environment played a direct role in the negotiation of social relations in the colonial Caribbean.

This book provides an up-to-date synthesis of Aztec culture, applying interdisciplinary approaches (archaeology, ethnohistory and ethnography) to reconstructing the complex and enigmatic civilization. Frances F. Berdan offers a balanced assessment of complementary and sometimes contradictory sources in unravelling the ancient way of life. The book provides a cohesive view of the Aztecs and their empire, emphasizing the diversity and complexity of social, economic, political and religious roles played by the many kinds of people we call 'Aztecs'. Concluding with three integrative case studies, the book examines the stresses, dynamics and anchors of Aztec culture and society.

The fifth Baron Abercromby (1841–1924), a soldier and keen archaeologist, published this two-volume work in 1912. His especial interest was prehistoric pottery, and he introduced the word 'beaker' as a term to indicate the late Neolithic/Chalcolithic western European culture which produced these characteristic clay drinking vessels. His aim was to produce a chronological survey of British and Irish ceramics from the late Neolithic to the end of the Bronze Age, to classify these by type and geographical area, and to examine the goods associated with dateable pottery in burials and cremation urns. This heavily illustrated work also puts the British beakers into their European context and considers the possible indications of movements of people given by variations in style. Volume 1 examines burials, the associated grave-goods, and skeletal remains, especially skulls, which may provide ethnographic information.

The grandson of a wealthy Manchester cotton manufacturer who had bought a Derbyshire estate, Thomas Bateman (1821–61) was able to spend his life in antiquarian pursuits. He had inherited the library and private museum of his father and grandfather, and published his father's notes on local excavations. This work, published in 1861, describes his own and others' excavations of barrows in the areas of Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Staffordshire, between 1848 and 1858. His main colleagues were Samuel Carrington, a Staffordshire schoolmaster, and James Ruddock, a taxidermist from Pickering in North Yorkshire. A fellow of the Society of Antiquities, and influenced by the excavation methods of Richard Colt Hoare, Bateman was known as 'a distinguished barrow opener'. His illustrated accounts of recent work are accompanied in an appendix by notes on other discoveries, descriptions of bones and pottery, and information on animal, vegetable and mineral remains found in the barrows.

This highly illustrated 1900 work on Egypt old and new by John Ward (1832–1912) seeks to guide the visitor to the ancient sites while also remarking on the radical changes to the economy and the development of the modern state since the intervention of the British government in 1883 and the appointment of Lord Cromer as consul-general and effective ruler. This blending of ancient and modern can be seen in discussions of Port Said ('not an Egyptian town at all') alongside the abandoned and silted-up delta ports of the Egyptians, Ptolemies and Ottomans. Thebes is discussed both as a city of the living and a city of the dead, and Ward notes approvingly the flattening of the ancient town of Assouan (Aswan), to form the foundations for new public buildings, on the orders of Lord Kitchener. Ward's subsequent book, Our Sudan (1905), is also reissued in this series.

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 centrepiece 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. 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.

In this book, Adam Rogers examines the late Roman phases of towns in Britain. Critically analysing the archaeological notion of decline, he focuses on public buildings, which played an important role, administrative and symbolic, within urban complexes. Arguing against the interpretation that many of these monumental civic buildings were in decline or abandoned in the later Roman period, he demonstrates that they remained purposeful spaces and important centres of urban life. Through a detailed assessment of the archaeology of late Roman towns, this book argues that the archaeological framework of decline does not permit an adequate and comprehensive understanding of the towns during this period. Moving beyond the idea of decline, this book emphasises a longer-term perspective for understanding the importance of towns in the later Roman period.

What was daily life like in Italy between 6000 and 3500 BC? In this book, first published in 2007, John Robb brings together the archaeological evidence on a wide range of aspects of life in Neolithic Italy and surrounding regions (Sicily and Malta). Exploring how the routines of daily life structured social relations and human experience during this period, Robb provides a detailed analysis of how people built houses, buried their dead, made and shared a distinctive cuisine, and made the pots and stone tools that archaeologists find. He also addresses questions of regional variation and long-term change, showing how the sweeping changes at the end of the Neolithic were rooted in and transformed the daily practices of earlier periods. Robb links the agency of daily life and the reproduction of social relations with long-term patterns in European prehistory.

The Hungarian-born archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein (1862–1943) is probably best remembered today for his explorations in Chinese Turkestan, and especially his discovery of the Buddhist treasure of Dunhuang, described in his earlier works, Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan and Ruins of Desert Cathay (also reissued in this series). Stein was equally interested in the territory north-west of the North-West Frontier, and in this highly illustrated 1929 work he describes an expedition to survey the route of Alexander the Great's invasion of India in 326 BCE. Having long been intrigued by 'that comparatively small area to the west of the Indus which Alexander's march of conquest towards India for a brief span of time illuminates as it were with the light of a meteor', and by archaeological remains showing a blend of Hellenistic and Buddhist art, Stein offers a fascinating account of an ancient clash of civilisations.

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.

This new edition of Living with the Ancestors contains an entirely new introduction that synthesizes scholarship on ancestralizing practices that has emerged since the 1995 publication of the first edition, which was heralded in Ethnohistory as 'a gem' by Robert M. Carmack. Ancestor veneration in the Maya region traditionally was associated with divine kingship and royal genealogies. In this study, the author challenges this assumption and presents a strong case for agrarian and Preclassic antecedents to the practice of remembering and celebrating forebears and curating their remains close to the dwelling. Integrating archaeological, epigraphic, ethnohistoric and ethnographic information, the author places ancestors within the larger social landscape of fields, orchards and gardens. The many registers of significance on which ancestralizing practices resonate are examined in detail - including spirituality, land tenure patterns, kin relations, and charters of rulership, to name just a few. Although case material is drawn from the Maya region, anyone interested in ancestor veneration will find intriguing material in this study.

A pioneer of British Egyptology, Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1797–1875) first travelled to Egypt in 1821, the year before Champollion published his breakthrough work on the Rosetta Stone. As public interest in Egypt grew, Wilkinson studied and sketched the country's major archaeological sites, and several of his works, describing what the increasing numbers of British travellers could expect to see, have been reissued in this series. This 1857 work was published as 'a companion to the Crystal Palace Egyptian Collections', and includes an introduction to Egyptian hieroglyphs by Wilkinson's friend Samuel Birch, of the British Museum. The Crystal Palace had been moved to a site in Sydenham in 1854, and housed a permanent collection of Egyptian antiquities, upon which Wilkinson draws in his highly illustrated account of the domestic life of the Egyptians. Birch's piece on hieroglyphs describes the decipherment, the ideograms, and the basics of phonetics and grammar.

Thomas Ashby's enthusiasm for the Roman Campagna was kindled at an early age, when his family settled in Rome and his father began to explore the low-lying area surrounding the Italian capital. After graduating in classics from Oxford, Ashby (1874–1931) became the first student at the newly founded British School of Archaeology at Rome, and became the third director, holding that post from 1906 to 1925. During this period, foreign archaeologists were not permitted to excavate in Italy, so the School's activities focused on topographical and museum studies; this 1927 work was a result. The book is organised around the roads leading out of Rome, 'beginning on the left bank of the Tiber, and moving southwards (clockwise)'. Ashby provides a detailed guide to the visible remains, in particular of the villas of the noble and wealthy families who retreated to the Campagna from the turmoil of the city.

Originally named Demetrio Papandriopulo and of Greek parentage, Giovanni D'Athanasi (1798–1854) became in 1815 the servant of Henry Salt (1780–1827), the traveller and antiquary who became British Consul in Egypt and a pioneer Egyptologist. (An account by J. J. Halls of Salt's life and career is also reissued in this series.) Between 1817 and 1827, D'Athanasi excavated on Salt's behalf at Thebes. Published in 1836, this book was intended to accompany the sale of the collection of antiquities amassed by Salt, in which D'Athanasi had a financial interest, but various delays meant that it came out after the main sale had taken place. As well as an often diverting account (in which many axes are ground) of Salt's activities at Giza, Thebes, Memphis and Abu Simbel, the book contains a complete catalogue of the collection, indicating which items were later acquired by the British Museum.

Joseph Anderson (1832–1916), curator of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, delivered the Rhind lectures of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland from 1879 to 1882 as a sequence on the ancient history of Scotland, and subsequently published them in book form. This highly illustrated book on the Iron Age in Scotland was published in 1883. The first two lectures consider types of burial, pagan and Christian (with some pagan elements surviving into the later period), and the later burial customs of the pagan Vikings of Orkney and Shetland, with their Scandinavian associations. A lecture on Celtic art is followed by consideration of brochs - the round, drystone-walled structures of the Iron Age, unique to Scotland – along with their architecture and their function as revealed by discoveries during excavation. A final chapter examines lake-dwellings, hill-forts, and earth-houses. Anderson's other Rhind lectures are also reissued in this series.

The career of Arthur Weigall (1880–1934) encompassed Egyptology but also stage design, film criticism and journalism. After studying in Germany, he worked at Abydos with Flinders Petrie, but in 1905 he was unexpectedly promoted to Chief Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt, when Howard Carter was forced to resign. His work in Egypt, especially in the area of Luxor, focused on the conservation of monuments and the prevention of shipping of artefacts abroad, until 1911, when he returned to London. This 1907 book on the condition of the monuments between the First Cataract and the Sudanese frontier arose from his work as inspector, and is intended as 'a preliminary description of monuments and ancient remains which require to be thoroughly studied'. Unlike Weigall's travellers' guides to Egypt, this is a factual and technical work, drawing attention to the threats to monuments from neglect, plunder, and the Nile floods.

Charles Roach Smith (1806–90) had a prosperous career as a druggist. His shop was in the City of London, then undergoing major excavation and redevelopment, and he began to collect the artefacts being uncovered around him. With a widening interest in all aspects of the past, Smith began to publish notes on his collection as well as antiquarian observations. (His Illustrations of Roman London is also reissued in this series.) This three-volume work, published 1883–91, reviews his activities as an excavator, collector, and co-founder of the British Archaeological Association. Pen-portraits of fellow enthusiasts and descriptions of ancient buildings and ruins are interspersed with accounts of infighting in the Association, and biting criticism of local and national authorities who refused to take on responsibility for Britain's archaeological heritage. Volume 1 includes essays on the Saxon Shore forts, of which Roach Smith was a pioneering investigator.

Charles Roach Smith (1806–90) had a prosperous career as a druggist. His shop was in the City of London, then undergoing major excavation and redevelopment, and he began to collect the artefacts being uncovered around him. With a widening interest in all aspects of the past, Smith began to publish notes on his collection as well as antiquarian observations. (His Illustrations of Roman London is also reissued in this series.) This three-volume work, published 1883–91, reviews his activities as an excavator, collector, and co-founder of the British Archaeological Association. Pen-portraits of fellow enthusiasts and descriptions of ancient buildings and ruins are interspersed with accounts of infighting in the Association, and biting criticism of local and national authorities who refused to take on responsibility for Britain's archaeological heritage. Volume 3, published posthumously, includes Smith's accounts of his later life in Kent, and his antiquarian visits to France.

Charles Roach Smith (1806–90) had a prosperous career as a druggist. His shop was in the City of London, then undergoing major excavation and redevelopment, and he began to collect the artefacts being uncovered around him. With a widening interest in all aspects of the past, Smith began to publish notes on his collection as well as antiquarian observations. (His Illustrations of Roman London is also reissued in this series.) This three-volume work, published 1883–91, reviews his activities as an excavator, collector, and co-founder of the British Archaeological Association. Pen-portraits of fellow enthusiasts and descriptions of ancient buildings and ruins are interspersed with accounts of infighting in the Association, and biting criticism of local and national authorities who refused to take on responsibility for Britain's archaeological heritage. Volume 2 contains anecdotes including an archaeological excavation conducted by Darwin's mentor Henslow on a tumulus in his parish.

Gilbert Goudie (1843–1918) spent his professional career as a banker, but had a passionate interest in Scandinavian and Celtic history, folklore and archaeology. A native Shetlander, he published widely on the Scottish islands, and was co-translator of the Orkneyinga Saga, edited by Joseph Anderson and also reissued in this series. This 1904 work presents an edited compilation of Goudie's various journal articles on Shetland, arranged in chronological order of their topics. These include prehistoric stone tools, the brochs or 'Pictish castles', monuments from the Celtic Christian period such as the St Ninian's stone, medieval legal documents, Danish and Norwegian claims to Orkney and Shetland, horizontal water-mills, the ancient 'kollie' (a simple oil lamp), its manufacture and use, and other household tools, like the 'bysmar' and 'knockin'-stane', with their description, etymology and use. This work gives fascinating glimpses of the long history and traditions of a remote and self-sufficient community.

Summary of the discoveries made during the course of excavations at the Paleolithic cave site of Fontéchevade, France, between 1994 and 1998. The excavation team address major problems raised by earlier excavations at the site from 1937 to 1954. These earlier excavations produced two sets of problematic data : first, the Lower Paleolithic stone tool industry, the Tayacian, that differs in fundamental ways from other contemporary industries, second, the human skull fragment that has been interpreted as modern in nature but that apparently dates from the last interglacial, long before there is any evidence for humans from any other site in Europe. By applying modern stratigraphic, lithic, faunal, geological, geophysical, and radiometric analyses, the interdisciplinary team demonstrates that the Tayacian 'industry' is a product of site formation processes and that the actual age of the Fontéchevade I fossil is compatible with other evidence for the arrival of modern humans in Europe.

George Petrie (1790–1866) grew up in Dublin, where he trained as an artist. He became fascinated by Irish antiquities and travelled around the country studying ancient sites while working for the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy. He won awards for his publications on art and architecture, including the influential The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, Anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion (1845), which is also reissued in this series. This collection of Irish-language inscriptions was edited after Petrie's death by Margaret Stokes (1832–1900), the archaeologist daughter of his friend William Stokes, and published in two volumes between 1872 and 1878. Volume 2 contains drawings of over 100 inscriptions from sites across Ireland, from Donegal to Kerry, and Antrim to Cork. Each is accompanied by notes on its subject, date, and linguistic features. The concluding essay gives an overview of the letter forms and decorative elements found in the inscriptions.

First published in 1882, this clearly written account, accessible to non-specialists, is one of the principal works of the pioneering Celtic scholar Sir John Rhys (1840–1915). The son of a Welsh farmer and lead miner, Rhys went on to become the first professor of Celtic at the University of Oxford, principal of Jesus College, and a fellow of the British Academy. Knighted in 1907, Rhys had by then made significant contributions to the study of Celtic languages, travelling widely and examining many inscriptions at first hand. Here he covers Celtic etymology, ethnology and history in Britain from the time of Julius Caesar to the eleventh-century Scottish kingdoms. His Lectures on Welsh Philology (1877) and Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx (1901) are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection. For the study of Celtic language, culture and mythology, the importance of Rhys's research is still acknowledged today.

This book tackles the topic of religion, a broad subject exciting renewed interest across the social and historical sciences. The volume is tightly focused on the early farming village of Çatalhöyük, which has generated much interest both within and outside of archaeology, especially for its contributions to the understanding of early religion. The volume discusses contemporary themes such as materiality, animism, object vitality, and material dimensions of spirituality while at the same time exploring broad evolutionary changes in the ways in which religion has influenced society. The volume results from a unique collaboration between an archaeological team and a range of specialists in ritual and religion.

This book examines ancient figurines from several world areas to address recurring challenges in the interpretation of prehistoric art. Sometimes figurines from one context are perceived to resemble those from another. Richard G. Lesure asks whether such resemblances play a role in our interpretations. Early interpreters seized on the idea that figurines were recurringly female and constructed the fanciful myth of a primordial Neolithic Goddess. Contemporary practice instead rejects interpretive leaps across contexts. Dr Lesure offers a middle path: a new framework for assessing the relevance of particular comparisons. He develops the argument in case studies that consider figurines from Paleolithic Europe, the Neolithic Near East and Formative Mesoamerica.

Studies of creativity frequently focus on the modern era yet creativity has always been part of human history. This book explores how creativity was expressed through the medium of clay in the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin. Although metal is one of the defining characteristics of Bronze Age Europe, in the Carpathian Basin clay was the dominant material in many areas of life. Here the daily experience of people was, therefore, much more likely to be related to clay than bronze. Through eight thematic essays, this book considers a series of different facets of creativity. Each essay combines a broad range of theoretical insights with a specific case study of ceramic forms, sites or individual objects. This innovative volume is the first to focus on creativity in the Bronze Age and offers new insights into the rich and complex archaeology of the Carpathian Basin.

Arthur Weigall (1880–1934) is chiefly remembered as an Egyptologist, although he also wrote novels, screenplays and film reviews. Following a period spent working with Flinders Petrie at Abydos, he succeeded Howard Carter in 1905 as Chief Inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt at Luxor. Here he worked diligently to protect Egyptian artefacts from the ravages of thieves, antiques dealers, public works, and amateur excavators. Ill health then forced a return to London, where Weigall became a successful set designer and later moved into journalism. He returned to Egypt to report on Carter's discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb for the Daily Mail. This collection of essays, accessible to non-specialists, appeared in 1923. Written in response to the extraordinary surge of public interest in Egyptology, the book covers various archaeological and historical subjects, taking Tutankhamun's magnificent tomb in the Valley of the Kings as its starting point.

First comprehensive English-language book on the largest city in the Americas before the 1400s. Teotihuacan is a UNESCO world heritage site, located in highland central Mexico, about twenty-five miles from Mexico City, visited by millions of tourists every year. The book begins with Cuicuilco, a predecessor that arose around 400 BCE, then traces Teotihuacan from its founding in approximately 150 BCE to its collapse around 600 CE. It describes the city's immense pyramids and other elite structures. It also discusses the dwellings and daily lives of commoners, including men, women, and children, and the craft activities of artisans. George L. Cowgill discusses politics, economics, technology, art, religion, and possible reasons for Teotihuacan's rise and fall. Long before the Aztecs and 800 miles from Classic Maya centers, Teotihuacan was part of a broad Mesoamerican tradition but had a distinctive personality that invites comparison with other states and empires of the ancient world.

The American writer and diplomat John Lloyd Stephens (1805–52) was effectively the founder of Mesoamerican archaeology, through his rediscovery of the Mayan civilization (his two-volume Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan is also reissued in this series). But before that, having qualified and practised as a lawyer in New York, he went on a two-year journey through Egypt and the Near East, publishing an account of his experiences in 1837 (under the name of George Stephens): this reissue is of the expanded 1838 edition. The work was extremely popular, possibly because, as he states in the preface, Stephens writes 'without perplexing himself with any deep speculations upon the rise and fall of empires', nor does he give much archaeological detail. Volume 1 begins with Stephens' arrival at Alexandria in Egypt, and his journey down the Nile to the Cataracts; it ends with a visit to St Catherine's monastery in Sinai.

The relief slabs that decorated the palaces of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which emphasized military conquest and royal prowess, have traditionally been understood as statements of imperial propaganda that glorified the Assyrian king. In this book, Mehmet-Ali Ataç argues that the reliefs hold a deeper meaning that was addressed primarily to an internal audience composed of court scholars and master craftsmen. Ataç focuses on representations of animals, depictions of the king as priest and warrior, and figures of mythological beings that evoke an archaic cosmos. He demonstrates that these images mask a complex philosophical rhetoric developed by court scholars in collaboration with master craftsmen who were responsible for their design and execution. Ataç argues that the layers of meaning embedded in the Neo-Assyrian palace reliefs go deeper than politics, imperial propaganda, and straightforward historical record.

Charles Roach Smith (1806–90), born on the Isle of Wight and educated in Hampshire, was apprenticed to a lawyer at fifteen, but a year later transferred to a chemist, where he prospered, moving to London and becoming wealthy from a firm of wholesale druggists and his own chemist's shop in Lothbury, in the City of London. Sewerage and other works in the City meant that Roman and medieval artefacts were regularly coming to light, and Smith's collection eventually numbered more than 5,000 pieces. He eventually sold it to the British Museum, at far less than its market value, so that it could remain intact. This book, published in 1859, describes the excavations, and uses the finds he and others acquired to illustrate 'the institutions, the habits, the customs, and the arts of our forefathers'. It remains an invaluable record of finds arising from the Victorian redevelopment of London.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, accounts of journeys down the Nile became increasingly common. This 1871 narrative by Frederic Eden (1828–1916), an invalid who later published a famous account of his Venice garden, describes how, sent to Egypt for his health in 1869, but unable to afford the normal European resource of a 'dragoman' (an Egyptian guide and factotum for travel, food and all negotiations with the natives), he rented a river boat (with crew including a cook) from a friend in Alexandria. He sailed to Wadi Halfa (now in Sudan), traditionally the furthest point in a Nile expedition, and then back down the river, with rowers providing the necessary power against the prevailing wind. An otherwise conventional account is enlivened by details, drawn from Eden's experience, of the money, information, 'provisions and other articles of outfit' needed for making the journey without a dragoman.

Originally published in 1936, this book contains a record of excavations at Thermi on the Greek island of Lesbos, led by renowned British archaeologist Winifred Lamb (1894–1963) over a period of several years in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The text is well supplied with drawings and plates of the various buildings and artefacts uncovered during the excavation, the majority of which are from the Bronze Age. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Lamb's work, ancient history or Bronze Age Greece.

Archaeological resource management (ARM) is the practice of recording, evaluating, preserving for future research and presenting to the public the material remains of the past. Almost all countries uphold a set of principles and laws for the preservation and professional management of archaeological remains. This book offers a critical and comparative perspective on the law and professional practices of managing archaeological remains. Beginning with a global history of ARM, John Carman provides an overview of legal and professional regulations governing ARM today. He then turns to consider the main practices involved in managing archaeological remains, namely, their identification and recording, their evaluation for 'significance', their preservation and their presentation to the public. As a whole, the book offers an overview of what ARM 'does' in the world, with implications for understanding the role of archaeology as a contemporary set of practices that determine how future generations will access material remains of the past.

Remembered for devising the measure of wind speed that bears his name, the naval officer and hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort (1774–1857) also had a hand in the production of more than a thousand nautical charts over the course of his career. In 1810 he had been appointed to command the frigate Frederikssteen by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. His mission was to explore 'Karamania', a contemporary European term for the shores of southern Turkey. For two years Beaufort charted the coastline and investigated its classical ruins before his work was brought to an end in 1812 by a Turkish attack which left him wounded. Returning to England, Beaufort set about drawing up the charts of his survey and documenting his findings, publishing this work in 1817, complete with engraved maps and plates. Experts and laypeople received the book favourably, as it shed much light on an underexplored region.

Originally published in 1934, this book analyses the archaeological findings from a number of graves at Rhitsona, excavated between 1909 and 1922. The finds include a great amount of archaic pottery, archaic and classical figurines, glass, beads and metal objects. Ure breaks down the discussion by artefact type, and supplies a great number of images of the grave goods and the locations in which they were found.

First published in 1916, this book brings together the archaeological evidence available at the time about the history and development of Greek domestic dwellings from the Neolithic Period to the Hellenistic age. The text includes information on Homeric, Mycenaean and Minoan palaces, and a number of ground plans. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the ancient construction of domestic space and in Classical archaeology.

The energetic and eccentric William Hutton (1723–1815) was apprenticed in a Derby silk-mill, but taught himself book-binding, determined to set up in the young and thriving city of Birmingham, to which he moved in 1750. From selling second-hand books, he moved on to new books and then acquired a paper warehouse. Investment in land as well as the book trade brought in a comfortable living, and in 1782 he published his History of Birmingham, of which the second edition of 1783 is also reissued in this series. Hutton was also famous for his walking exploits, which led to his 1801 expedition to Hadrian's Wall. His account of his walk northward from Birmingham to Carlisle and then along the wall and back again, and home, includes a history of the wall and a description of the surviving ruins along its length. The corrected second edition of 1813 is reissued here.

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.

The publisher and author John Taylor (1781–1864), who took an interest in various antiquarian matters, published this work in 1859. Using the measurements taken by the seventeenth-century archaeologist John Greaves and by the French savants who had examined the Great Pyramid at Giza during Napoleon's Egyptian expedition, he deduced the existence of a 'pyramid inch' (fractionally longer than the British inch), which was one twenty-fifth of the so-called 'sacred cubit' and was derived from ancient astronomical and time-measurement observations; and as a convinced Christian, he concluded that the British inch was therefore divinely inspired. His work was very influential and had a considerable following (the astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth's 1864 book on Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid is also reissued in this series), but was later debunked by the more accurate surveys and measurements of Flinders Petrie, whose interest in Egypt was partly aroused by reading this book.

Archeologists have always considered the beginnings of Andean civilization from c.13,000 to 6,000 years ago to be important in terms of the appearance of domesticated plants and animals, social differentiation, and a sedentary lifestyle, but there is more to this period than just these developments. During this period, the spread of crop production and other technologies, kinship-based labor projects, mound-building, and population aggregation formed ever-changing conditions across the Andes. From Foraging to Farming in the Andes proposes a new and more complex model for understanding the transition from hunting and gathering to cultivation. It argues that such developments evolved regionally, were fluid and uneven, and were subject to reversal. This book develops these arguments from a large body of archaeological evidence, collected over 30 years in two valleys in northern Peru, and then places the valleys in the context of recent scholarship studying similar developments around the world.

The Euphrates Expedition of 1835 was intended to explore the possibility of an overland route to India using the Euphrates river. Led by army officer Francis Rawdon Chesney, the expedition hauled two prefabricated steamboats from the Mediterranean to the upper Euphrates. Among the team of soldiers, engineers and miners assembled was surgeon William Ainsworth (1807–96), who also acted as the expedition's geologist, and published this account in 1838. He describes his work as 'containing a very small portion of the scientific labours' of the expedition. It deals principally with the geological formations around the Euphrates, and the 'indices of the Deluge of Scripture, which are found to exist in the land supposed to have been tenanted by Noah', but also includes descriptions of local plants and animals, and of the archaeological remains which were encountered. This early survey of a remote region will be of interest to students of Assyriology.

Napoleon's military expedition to Egypt in 1798 famously included various scientists and savants, among whom was the author of this three-volume work, published in French in 1802 and in English in 1803. Vivant Denon (1747–1825) was a diplomat under the Ancien Régime, but survived the Revolution thanks to the patronage of the painter David, and met Napoleon through the salon of Josephine de Beauharnais. He accompanied the army, excavating and sketching, sometimes even during battles. The publication of this lively, illustrated account is regarded as the chief stimulus for the so-called 'Egyptian Revival' style of architecture, interior design and even costume. In Volume 3, Denon continues his travels, taking opportunities to join with surveying parties, sketching, and purchasing antiquities, including mummies and papyrus manuscripts. The volume ends with Denon's return to France, and his regret at how little he had seen and done, compared with the immensity of Egypt.

His independent means as the son of a wealthy banker enabled Alexander Henry Rhind (1833–63) to devote his short life to antiquarianism. While reading for the Scottish bar, he studied and investigated Pictish remains, and pressed for the inclusion of archaeological sites in Ordnance Survey maps. On developing tubercular symptoms, he gave up his legal studies and passed the winters from 1855 to 1857 in Egypt, where he made the important studies and excavations recorded in this 1862 book. He focuses on the necropolis of Thebes, and in particular on the unplundered tomb of an eighteenth-dynasty official. Putting his work into the wider context of the history of ancient Egypt and the importance of the city of Thebes, he also describes the reuse of the necropolis ruins as homes for modern Egyptian peasants and as the centre of a thriving trade in antiquities, both genuine and forged.

An army officer and politician, Richard William Howard Vyse (1784–53) also made his mark as an Egyptologist. This three-volume work, published in 1840–2, has remained an instructive resource in Egyptology up to the present day. Adopting the style of a journal, with illustrations and diagrams throughout, it narrates in detail his excavations at Giza, surveying and measuring the pyramids. Following Vyse's return to England, the work was continued by the engineer and surveyor John Shae Perring (1813–69). Vyse gives observations of his travels, and of the landscape, people and architecture he encountered, as well as details of the important work he carried out. Most notable was his discovery, using gunpowder, of four new chambers in the Great Pyramid containing 'quarry marks' - graffiti by the pyramid builders. Volume 3 (1842) describes the work continued by Perring on various pyramids, and on the mummy pits at Saqqara.