Archaeologists in Print

Archaeologists in Print
Author: Amara Thornton
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2018-06-25
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1787352587

Archaeologists in Print is a history of popular publishing in archaeology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a pivotal period of expansion and development in both archaeology and publishing. It examines how British archaeologists produced books and popular periodical articles for a non-scholarly audience, and explores the rise in archaeologists’ public visibility. Notably, it analyses women’s experiences in archaeology alongside better known male contemporaries as shown in their books and archives. In the background of this narrative is the history of Britain’s imperial expansion and contraction, and the evolution of modern tourism in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Archaeologists exploited these factors to gain public and financial support and interest, and build and maintain a reading public for their work, supported by the seasonal nature of excavation and tourism. Reinforcing these publishing activities through personal appearances in the lecture hall, exhibition space and site tour, and in new media – film, radio and television – archaeologists shaped public understanding of archaeology. It was spadework, scripted. The image of the archaeologist as adventurous explorer of foreign lands, part spy, part foreigner, eternally alluring, solidified during this period. That legacy continues, undimmed, today. Praise for Archaeologists in Print This beautifully written book will be valued by all kinds of readers: you don't need to be an archaeologist to enjoy the contents, which take you through different publishing histories of archaeological texts and the authors who wrote them. From the productive partnership of travel guide with archaeological interest, to the women who feature so often in the history of archaeological publishing, via closer analysis of the impact of John Murray, Macmillan and Co, and Penguin, this volume excavates layers of fascinating facts that reveal much of the wider culture of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The prose is clear and the stories compulsive: Thornton brings to life a cast of people whose passion for their profession lives again in these pages. Warning: the final chapter, on Archaeological Fictions, will fill your to-be-read list with stacks of new titles to investigate! This is a highly readable, accessible exploration into the dynamic relationships between academic authors, publishers, and readers. It is, in addition, an exemplar of how academic research can attract a wide general readership, as well as a more specialised one: a stellar combination of rigorous scholarship with lucid, pacy prose. Highly recommended!' Samantha Rayner, Director of UCL Centre for Publishing; Deputy Head of Department and Director of Studies, Department of Information Studies, UCL

Reconstructing a Maritime Past

Reconstructing a Maritime Past
Author: Matthew Harpster
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2022-12-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000813657

Reconstructing a Maritime Past argues that rather than applying geo-ethnic labels to shipwrecks to describe “Greek” or “Roman” seafaring, a more intriguing alternative emphasizes a maritime culture’s valorization of the Mediterranean Sea. Doing so creates new questions and research agendas to understand the past human relationship with the sea. This study makes this argument in three sections. Chapters 1 and 2, contrasting intellectual histories of maritime archaeological interpretive approaches common in Northern Europe and the Mediterranean, propose that the former perspective – which embodies contemporary and fluid perceptions of culture – is a better theoretical framework for future research. Chapters 3–5 re-interpret the corpus of submerged sites in the Mediterranean Sea with this approach, arguing that this dataset does not represent “Phoenician,” “Muslim,” or “Byzantine” seafaring, but the practices of a maritime culture. Key to this section is the author’s method that utilizes superimposed polygons to model patterns of maritime activity, generating centennial results at different scales. Having built the models of a maritime culture’s valorization of the Mediterranean Sea, Chapter 6 contains the first comparisons of these models to other datasets, questioning the relevance of textual media to understand maritime activity, while finding closer analogues with other archaeological corpora. By deconstructing interpretive methods in maritime archaeology, offering a new synthesizing interpretive approach that is scalable and decoupled from past perceptions, and critically examining the applicability of various media to illuminate the past maritime experience, this book will appeal to scholars at various stages of their careers.

Women in Archaeology

Women in Archaeology
Author: Cheryl Claassen
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1994-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780812215090

The fourteen essays in this collection explore the place of women in archaeology in the twentieth century, arguing that they have largely been excluded from "an essentially all-male establishment."

The Aztec Templo Mayor

The Aztec Templo Mayor
Author: Antonio Serrato-Combe
Publisher:
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN:

The Templo Mayor was a concrete manifestation of this unique system of beliefs. Antonio Serrato-Combe's carefully researched graphic treatments of these architectural spaces are at once both novel and stunning. Using computer-generated, three-dimensional color imagery, he presents a series of architectural topics ranging from site-planning principles to building details.

The Lost City of the Monkey God

The Lost City of the Monkey God
Author: Douglas Preston
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2017-01-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1455540021

The #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, named one of the best books of the year by The Boston Globe and National Geographic: acclaimed journalist Douglas Preston takes readers on a true adventure deep into the Honduran rainforest in this riveting narrative about the discovery of a lost civilization -- culminating in a stunning medical mystery. Since the days of conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization. Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains, quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease. Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure, and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century.

Conservation Practices on Archaeological Excavations

Conservation Practices on Archaeological Excavations
Author: Corrado Pedelì
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 170
Release: 2014-02-01
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1606061585

The relationship between archaeology and conservation has long been complex and, at times, challenging. Archaeologists are often seen as interested principally in excavation and research, while conservators are concerned mainly with stabilization and the prevention of deterioration. Yet it is often initial conservation in the field that determines the long-term survival and intelligibility of both moveable artifacts and fixed architectural features. This user-friendly guide to conservation practices on archaeological excavations covers both structures and artifacts, starting from the moment when they are uncovered. Individual chapters discuss excavation and conservation, environmental and soil issues, deterioration, identification and condition assessment, detachment and removal, initial cleaning, coverings and shelters, packing, and documentation. There are also eight appendixes. Geared primarily for professionals engaged in the physical practice of excavation, this book will also interest archaeologists, archaeological conservators, site managers, conservation scientists, museum curators, and students of archaeology and conservation.