March of Archaeology

by C.W. Ceram

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394435281
• ISBN13: 9780394435282
• Release Date: September 1970
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Pictorial history of archaeology

This book is a pictorial history of archaeology, from the discovery of a Roman sarcophagus along the Via Appia in 1485 up to the present use of aerial archaeology to outline from far above the ground what can't be discerned while on it (usually ancient roads). Ceram includes chapters on Pompeii, the discovery of Troy, the pyramids and Valley of the Kings in Egypt, deciphering the cuneiform script, ancient Babylon and Ur, and New World discoveries in Mexico and Peru, among other topics. The text is succinct (it is a pictorial history), but clear and focused. Ceram is also willing to venture an opinion here and there; for example, he believes Schliemann's methods at Troy were not as bad as most make them out to be and archaeologists need to cut him a break. The pictures and photographs (310 of them) complement the text beautifully. For someone new to the field or wanting a brief outline of the major events (Ceram even includes a thorough chronological table listing important archaeological matters), this is an excellent source.

A True Treasure...if you can find it....

This book was first published in 1958. I was given a copy of it in my youth, while still in high school, and have kept it and revered it ever since. The book is both a wondrous recounting of the major archaeological discoveries centering around the ancient civilizations, both old and new world,...but also, it is a collection of beautiful photographs of statues, vases, reliefs...plus drawings...many of the photographs are in excellent color. I quote from Ceram's "Introduction":"This picture book was planned in conjuction with my first book on the history of archaeology, *Gods, Graves, and Scholars*. To my surprise, I discovered that although there were any number of picture books which show the riches of past civilizations as revealed by archaeology--the bookseller sets them on his shelves under the general heading of 'art books'--there was not a single one whose subject was the history of archaeology itself. Archaeology, considered in its full import as the study of antiquity, includes far more than the often dusty and sometimes monotonous process of excavation. There is the drama and beauty of the important find. And every find is followed by the far more important process of interpretation. And in the course of interpretation there takes place that wonderful, methodical recreation of the past which our civilization alone has practiced and which makes it clear that archaeology is among 'the conquering sciences of the nineteenth century,' to borrow a phrase from Adolf Michaelis, who was the first to deal with the history of archaeology." -- C. W. Ceram; "Introduction." To give a sense of Ceram's narrative style, here is an excerpt in which he talks about "the Father of Archaeology," Johann Joachim Winckelmann. First about Winckelmann, himself: "[He] was the father of archaeology insofar as it resurrected the art of antiquity. He brought order into the interpretation of art. Son of a German cobbler, he was the first to discriminate among styles. Only to this extent was he an archaeologist. A poet hid under his scholarly mantle. Some of his descriptions of ancient sculpture are close to ecstatic hymns." ********** Then there is an excerpt which describes a visitor (Christian Traugott Weinlig) who is permitted to see the gem of Winckelmann's collection of antiquities--a portion of a relief of Antinous. "...Thence he led me with marked gravity to the gem of the collection, the head of Antinous, in low-relief, of white marble. Even an Iroquois, I reflected, would have to apprehend the beauty of this statue. ... But how beautiful the entire relief must have been. For Winckelmann assserts that this is only the upper part; ...presumably the whole figure was represented as standing on a chariot. This he surmised, he said, from the preserved hands, of which the right seems to be holding one end and the left the other end of the reins." [Christian Traugott Weinlig;*Letters on Rome*, 1782.] [Ceram continues:] The relief dates from the period between A.D. 130