Cambridge Illustrated Histories
2 total works
This is the fullest and most authoritative single-volume account of archaeology from the earliest discoveries to the great excavations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Lavishly illustrated throughout and global in scope, it tells the story of those explorations which have helped shape our knowledge of the past. From early digging in Greece and the Near East, through the part played by archaeology in the 'discovery' of the Americas, to the unearthing of sites in Africa, Scandinavia, the former Soviet Union, and Australasia, the book describes individual events as part of a connected narrative amounting to a thorough history of the subject for general readers. It is the first general history of archaeology written by a team of specialists and the first history to cover every part of the world. The book is complete with time-period charts, lists of archaeological events, and a full index.
Beautifully illustrated in colour with many rare and unique photographs, prints, and drawings, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art presents the first balanced and truly world-wide survey of prehistoric art. The book also offers the first detailed account of how the world of scholarship became aware of the existence of prehistoric art, reproducing the very earliest drawings by explorers and surveyors from the 1600s onwards to create a unique pictorial as well as discursive resource. With this powerful combination of illustration and analysis, Paul Bahn describes what prehistoric art is and the different ways in which it can shed light on the lives and preoccupations of our ancestors: sexual, humorous, social, economic, and religious.