Gods, graves, and scholars : the story of archaeology

Since the original German edition of this book was published in 1949, it has been translated into twenty-six languages and read by millions of people, even though I have never permitted a reprint edition to be issued. While Gods, Graves, and Scholars was originally written for the widest general reading public, its strict adherence to scientific standards has led long since to its being made required reading for some college courses. University and college libraries often stock as many as ten copies or more in order to be able to satisfy the demand for the book, which my publisher and a number of critics have called a classic. In the meantime, archæology has marched on. New discoveries have been made, new interpretations advanced, and above all, remarkable new techniques for archæological researches developed. To cover these new developments, I have revised the original edition and concluded the book with a summary of the important new findings and methods. The extensive additions to the original American text have been translated from the German by Sophie Wilkins, to whom I particularly wish to express my appreciation also for her painstaking work in comparing texts and making necessary rearrangements in the revised edition. Gods, Graves and Scholars was followed by The Secret of the Hittites: The Discovery of an Ancient Empire (1956), The March of Archæology (1958), a pictorial history of archæology, and Hands on the Past (1966), a documentation. Together these four volumes, with their combined total of nearly a thousand bibliographical items and picture sources, constitute the most comprehensive history of archæology ever published for the general reader, containing numerous facts and stories long forgotten even by the specialists, as well as the latest developments and scientific thought in the field. C.W.C. July 1967 I THE BOOK OF THE STATUESPompeii, Troy, Mycenæ, Crete 1/The Queen of Naples: From Her Garden to Pompeii 2/Winckelmann: The Birth of a Science 3/Interlude: Why Search for the Past? 4/Schliemann (I): A Merchant Digs for Trojan Gold 5/Schliemann (II): The Mask of Agamemnon 6/Schliemann (III): Conflict with the Scholars 7/Schliemann (IV): Mycenæ, Tiryns, and Crete 8/Evans: Crete and the Minotaur II THE BOOK OF THE PYRAMIDSThe Empires of Egypt 9/Napoleon: In the Land of the Pharaohs 10/Champollion (I): The Mystery of the Rosetta Stone 11/Champollion (II): Treason and Hieroglyphics 12/Beizoni, Lepsius, and Mariette: Life in Ancient Egypt 13/Petrie: The Tomb of Amenemhet 14/Robbers in the Valley of the Kings 15/Mummies 16/Carter: The Tomb of Tutankhamen 17/Carter: The Curse of the Pharaohs III THE BOOK OF THE TOWERSThe Kingdoms of Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumeria 18/Botta Finds Nineveh 19/Grotefend: A Schoolteacher Deciphers Cuneiform 20/Rawlinson: Nebuchadnezzar’s Dictionary in Clay 21/Layard: A Dilettante Outwits a Pasha 22/George Smith: The Story of the Flood 23/Koldewey: The Tower of Babel 24/Woolley: The Oldest Culture in the World IV THE BOOK OF THE TEMPLESThe Empires of the Aztecs, the Mayas, and the Toltecs 25/Cortés (I): The Treasure of Moctezuma 26/Cortés (II): The Beheaded Culture 27/John Lloyd Stephens Buys a Jungle City 28/Intermezzo 29/The Mystery of the Abandoned Mayan Cities 30/Edward Herbert Thompson: Chiché-Itzá and the Sacred Well 31/Aztecs, Mayas, and Toltecs: Whence Did They Come? V BOOKS THAT CANNOT YET BE WRITTEN 32/New Searches in Old Empires C.W. Ceram visualized archeology as a wonderful combination of high adventure, romance, history and scholarship, and this book, a chronicle of man's search for his past, reads like a dramatic narrative. We travel with Heinrich Schliemann as, defying the ridicule of the learned world, he actually unearths the remains of the ancient city of Troy. We share the excitement of Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter as they first glimpse the riches of Tutankhamen's tomb, of George Smith when he found the ancient clay tablets that contained the records of the Biblical Flood. We rediscover the ruined splendors of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the wonders of the ancient wold; of Chichen Itza, the abandoned pyramids of the Maya: and the legendary Labyrinth of tile Minotaur in Crete. Here is much of the history of civilization and the stories of the men who rediscovered it. Illustrated with drawings, maps, and photographs C.W. Ceram visualized archeology as a wonderful combination of high adventure, romance, history and scholarship, and this book, a chronicle of man's search for his past, reads like a dramatic narrative. We travel with Heinrich Schliemann as, defying the ridicule of the learned world, he actually unearths the remains of the ancient city of Troy. We share the excitement of Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter as they first glimpse the riches of Tutankhamen's tomb, of George Smith when he found the ancient clay tablets that contained the records of the Biblical Flood. We rediscover the ruined splendors of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the wonders of the ancient wold; of Chichen Itza, the abandoned pyramids of the Maya: and the legendary Labyrinth of tile Minotaur in Crete. Here is much of the history of civilization and the stories of the men who rediscovered it. From the Paperback edition