The World's Great Archaeological Treasures

by Paul G. Bahn

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Summary

The treasures that our ancestors left behind, sometimes lost for many centuries, offer a unique and fascinating insight into the way they lived their daily lives. In The World's Great Archaeological Treasures, Paul Bahn's team of international specialists explore a selection of the world's most significant archaeological discoveries to uncover our past.

The treasures described and analyzed here come from a wide range of different contexts; in terms of geography and cultures as well as historic--or prehistoric--period. The treasures range from Ice-Age figurines of central and eastern Europe to African gold, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the sensational discoveries of Egyptologists in the tomb of Tutankhamen.

Many of the most well-known treasure troves were originally put together as burial furnishings, and for this reason they tell us much of what our forebears believed about death and the afterlife, and how provision was made for the well-being of the dead in their journey onward.

Other hoards, however, were not stored deliberately--the treasures of Pompeii, for example, were never intended to be left in situ, and they offer a more spontaneous and less organized picture of both the utilitarian and the decorative objects of daily and ceremonial life. All these and more are carefully examined and assessed, both as objects in their own right and, crucially, within their context. This scholarly and accessible book offers a fascinating insight into human history around the globe.

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