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The discovery of material remains from the recent or the ancient past has always been a source of fascination, but the development of archaeology as an academic discipline which interpreted such finds is relatively recent. It was the work of Winckelmann at Pompeii in the 1760s which first revealed the potential of systematic excavation to scholars and the wider public. Pioneering figures of the nineteenth century such as Schliemann, Layard and Petrie transformed archaeology from a search for ancient artifacts, by means as crude as using gunpowder to break into a tomb, to a science which drew from a wide range of disciplines - ancient languages and literature, geology, chemistry, social history - to increase our understanding of human life and society in the remote past.

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150 results in Cambridge Library Collection - Archaeology

Page 2 of 8

Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language
  • Chiefly Collected and Drawn by George Petrie
  • Volume 2
  • George Petrie
  • Edited by Margaret Stokes
  • Published online:
    05 September 2015
    Print publication:
    26 March 2015
    First published in:
    1878
  • George Petrie (1790–1866) grew up in Dublin, where he trained as an artist. He became fascinated by Irish antiquities and travelled around the country studying ancient sites while working for the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy. He won awards for his publications on art and architecture, including the influential The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, Anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion (1845), which is also reissued in this series. This collection of Irish-language inscriptions was edited after Petrie's death by Margaret Stokes (1832–1900), the archaeologist daughter of his friend William Stokes, and published in two volumes between 1872 and 1878. Volume 2 contains drawings of over 100 inscriptions from sites across Ireland, from Donegal to Kerry, and Antrim to Cork. Each is accompanied by notes on its subject, date, and linguistic features. The concluding essay gives an overview of the letter forms and decorative elements found in the inscriptions.

History of Ancient Pottery
  • Volume 2, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman
  • Samuel Birch
  • Published online:
    05 September 2015
    Print publication:
    02 April 2015
    First published in:
    1858
  • The Egyptologist Samuel Birch (1813–85) began to study Chinese at school, and obtained his first post at the British Museum cataloguing Chinese coins. He maintained his interest in Chinese civilisation throughout his life, but also collaborated with C. T. Newton on a catalogue of Greek and Etruscan vases, and with Sir Henry Rawlinson on cuneiform inscriptions, while also specialising in the examination and cataloguing of the Museum's growing collection of Egyptian papyri and other artefacts. Birch describes this two-volume, highly illustrated work on ancient pottery, published in 1858, as filling a perceived need: 'A work has long been required which should embody the general history of the fictile art of the ancients.' Volume 2 continues to examine Greek pottery, including the work of named or identified individual craftsmen, and then moves on to Etruscan and Roman wares, with a short final section on 'Celtic, Teutonic, and Scandinavian pottery'.

Biblical Researches in Palestine and the Adjacent Regions
  • A Journal of Travels in the Years 1838 and 1852
  • Volume 3
  • Edward Robinson, Eli Smith
  • Published online:
    05 September 2015
    Print publication:
    02 April 2015
    First published in:
    1867
  • American philologist Edward Robinson (1794–1863) is considered a founding figure in the field of biblical geography and archaeology. In 1838 he explored Palestine with Eli Smith (1801–57), a Yale graduate and Protestant missionary, and co-author of Missionary Researches in Armenia (also reissued in this series). Smith had settled in Beirut and was proficient in Arabic. The authors succeeded in identifying many biblical locations, and the original edition of their book, structured as a travel journal, was published in 1841. It was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society the following year. Robinson and Smith returned to Palestine in 1852 and published an enlarged edition in 1856. This reissue is of the 1857 third edition, which was slightly abridged but contained new maps and plans. Volume 3 covers Robinson's 1852 itinerary through Beirut, Galilee, Samaria, Jerusalem and Damascus, again with detailed accounts of topography, history and architecture.

Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language
  • Chiefly Collected and Drawn by George Petrie
  • Volume 1
  • George Petrie
  • Edited by Margaret Stokes
  • Published online:
    05 September 2015
    Print publication:
    26 March 2015
    First published in:
    1872
  • George Petrie (1790–1866) grew up in Dublin, where he trained as an artist. He became fascinated by Irish antiquities and travelled around the country studying ancient sites while working for the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and the Royal Irish Academy. He won awards for his publications on art and architecture, including the influential The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland, Anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion (1845), which is also reissued in this series. This collection of Irish-language inscriptions was edited after Petrie's death by Margaret Stokes (1832–1900), the archaeologist daughter of his friend William Stokes, and published in two volumes between 1872 and 1878. Volume 1 is devoted to the important early medieval monastery at Clonmacnoise. It opens with an essay on the historical background, and contains drawings of over 170 inscriptions connected with the monastery. Each is accompanied by notes on its subject, date, script, decoration and linguistic features.

Retrospections, Social and Archaeological
  • Volume 2
  • Charles Roach Smith
  • Published online:
    05 September 2015
    Print publication:
    02 April 2015
    First published in:
    1886
  • Charles Roach Smith (1806–90) had a prosperous career as a druggist. His shop was in the City of London, then undergoing major excavation and redevelopment, and he began to collect the artefacts being uncovered around him. With a widening interest in all aspects of the past, Smith began to publish notes on his collection as well as antiquarian observations. (His Illustrations of Roman London is also reissued in this series.) This three-volume work, published 1883–91, reviews his activities as an excavator, collector, and co-founder of the British Archaeological Association. Pen-portraits of fellow enthusiasts and descriptions of ancient buildings and ruins are interspersed with accounts of infighting in the Association, and biting criticism of local and national authorities who refused to take on responsibility for Britain's archaeological heritage. Volume 2 contains anecdotes including an archaeological excavation conducted by Darwin's mentor Henslow on a tumulus in his parish.

History of Ancient Pottery
  • Volume 1, Egyptian, Assyrian, and Greek
  • Samuel Birch
  • Published online:
    05 September 2015
    Print publication:
    02 April 2015
    First published in:
    1858
  • The Egyptologist Samuel Birch (1813–85) began to study Chinese at school, and obtained his first post at the British Museum cataloguing Chinese coins. He maintained his interest in Chinese civilisation throughout his life, but also collaborated with C. T. Newton on a catalogue of Greek and Etruscan vases, and with Sir Henry Rawlinson on cuneiform inscriptions, while also specialising in the examination and cataloguing of the Museum's growing collection of Egyptian papyri and other artefacts. Birch describes this two-volume, highly illustrated work on ancient pottery, published in 1858, as filling a perceived need: 'A work has long been required which should embody the general history of the fictile art of the ancients.' Volume 1 covers the composition and techniques of the pottery of ancient Egypt and Assyria, with notes on Jewish Phoenician wares, and begins an examination of the techniques and art of the Greek ceramicists.

Retrospections, Social and Archaeological
  • Volume 1
  • Charles Roach Smith
  • Published online:
    05 September 2015
    Print publication:
    02 April 2015
    First published in:
    1883
  • Charles Roach Smith (1806–90) had a prosperous career as a druggist. His shop was in the City of London, then undergoing major excavation and redevelopment, and he began to collect the artefacts being uncovered around him. With a widening interest in all aspects of the past, Smith began to publish notes on his collection as well as antiquarian observations. (His Illustrations of Roman London is also reissued in this series.) This three-volume work, published 1883–91, reviews his activities as an excavator, collector, and co-founder of the British Archaeological Association. Pen-portraits of fellow enthusiasts and descriptions of ancient buildings and ruins are interspersed with accounts of infighting in the Association, and biting criticism of local and national authorities who refused to take on responsibility for Britain's archaeological heritage. Volume 1 includes essays on the Saxon Shore forts, of which Roach Smith was a pioneering investigator.

A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome
  • Samuel Ball Platner
  • Edited by Thomas Ashby
  • Published online:
    05 September 2015
    Print publication:
    21 May 2015
    First published in:
    1929
  • This useful topographical dictionary was compiled by Samuel Ball Platner (1863–1921) of Western Reserve University in collaboration with Thomas Ashby (1874–1931), the third director of the British School of Archaeology at Rome. Sadly, Platner died before the work was completed, and Ashby eventually published it in 1929. The bulk of the work is an alphabetical list of the buildings, streets and geographical features in ancient Rome mentioned by ancient authors and/or discovered by more recent exploration and excavation of the ruins, with details about literary and historical references, and about the original and any surviving structure. There is also a chronological index to those monuments and other buildings that are dateable, and a large map (downloadable from the web at www.cambridge.org/9781108083249). With listings from 'Acca Larentia' to 'Zater(…nses)', the work is an invaluable tool in the exploration of Rome, whether by the scholar, student, or visitor.

A Handbook to the Palace of Minos at Knossos
  • With its Dependencies
  • J. D. S. Pendlebury
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    25 September 2014
    First published in:
    1933
  • Sir Arthur Evans's excavation at the Cretan site of Knossos from 1900 onwards uncovered a previously unknown civilization. His enthusiastic (though controversial) reconstructions of the site and its fresco decorations made it an attractive destination for travellers and tourists, and Evans thought a simple guidebook for visitors would be desirable alongside his own multi-volume work, The Palace of Minos (also reissued in this series). This was published in 1933 by John Pendlebury (1904–41), a brilliant young archaeologist later killed by German troops during the invasion of Crete in 1941. With a foreword by Evans, the handbook is in two parts: an architectural history of the Palace of Minos, and a guide to the site, with a note of the time needed to explore each building, maps showing the best trail to be followed, plans, and detailed descriptions. The book continues to be of value to both archaeologists and tourists.

Assyrian Discoveries
  • An Account of Explorations and Discoveries on the Site of Nineveh, during 1873 and 1874
  • George Smith
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    06 November 2014
    First published in:
    1875
  • The Assyriologist George Smith (1840–76) was trained originally as an engraver, but was enthralled by the discoveries of Layard and Rawlinson. He taught himself cuneiform script, and joined the British Museum as a 'repairer' or matcher of broken cuneiform tablets. Promotion followed, and after one of Smith's most significant discoveries among the material sent to the Museum - a Babylonian story of a great flood - he was sent to the Middle East, where he found more inscriptions which contained other parts of the epic tale of Gilgamesh. In this 1875 work, a bestseller in its day, Smith describes his expedition, the difficulties encountered, and the discoveries, including hundreds of inscriptions which increased knowledge of the Babylonian and Assyrian civilisations but also had a profound effect on traditional biblical studies. Smith died in Aleppo in 1876, having revolutionised understanding of the ancient Near East.

Die altpersischen Keil-inschriften von Persepolis
  • And Das Lautsystem des Altpersischen
  • Christian Lassen, Julius Oppert
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    06 November 2014
    First published in:
    1836
  • The decipherment of the ancient cuneiform scripts was one of the major breakthroughs in nineteenth-century archaeology and linguistics. Among the scholars working on Old Persian was Christian Lassen (1800–76), professor of Sanskrit at Bonn. Lassen's book on cuneiform inscriptions from Persepolis appeared in 1836, a month before his friend Eugène Burnouf independently published very similar conclusions. Lassen's account gives vivid insights into the detective work involved, as he painstakingly compares individual words and grammatical forms with their Avestan and Sanskrit equivalents, and proposes sounds for the symbols. The book uses a specially designed cuneiform font, and credits the printer, Georgi of Bonn. This Cambridge Library Collection volume also includes a short monograph on Old Persian phonology published in Berlin in 1847 by the Assyriologist Julius Oppert (1825–1905). Oppert revisits Lassen's conclusions in the light of Henry Creswicke Rawlinson's important 1846 memoir on the trilingual Behistun inscription.

The Temple of the Andes
  • Richard Inwards
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    20 November 2014
    First published in:
    1884
  • Richard Inwards (1840–1937) won renown as the author of the highly popular Weather Lore (also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection). For many years he worked as a mine manager, and in 1866, while working in Bolivia, he visited the site of Tiwanaku. Although the ruins of this once great city were first described by the conquistadores, it was not until the nineteenth century, with the development of more rigorous archaeological methods, that the site began to be more fully studied. Although published in 1884, this brief account is based on Inwards' 1866 visit, and so is contemporaneous with the work there by E. G. Squier. Pre-dating many of the earliest studies, the book is well illustrated with sketches and plans. The text describes the structures that Inwards observed, provides current thinking as to their possible purpose and original characteristics, and also offers remarks on the local people and culture of the present day.

The Roman Wall
  • A Historical, Topographical, and Descriptive Account of the Barrier of the Lower Isthmus, Extending from the Tyne to the Solway, Deduced from Numerous Personal Surveys
  • John Collingwood Bruce
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    18 December 2014
    First published in:
    1851
  • Brought up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, John Collingwood Bruce (1805–92) was fascinated by the antiquities of the north of England, and made an especial study of the impressive ruins of the 'Roman Wall'. He published this work in 1851, using both the writings of medieval and recent historians, and his own and others' field surveys and excavations. It describes the route of the wall from the Solway to Wallsend, and the surviving structures such as forts and milecastles along its length. Bruce also discusses and illustrates the Roman artefacts discovered around the wall, from pottery and nails to funerary monuments, which give insights into the lives of the soldiers from across the Roman empire who were stationed at this northern outpost. His argument that Hadrian was the builder of the wall reminds us that, until the mid-nineteenth century, it was thought to have been the idea of the later emperor Septimius Severus.

Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land
  • Volume 2
  • John Lloyd Stephens
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    05 March 2015
    First published in:
    1838
  • The American writer and diplomat John Lloyd Stephens (1805–52) was effectively the founder of Mesoamerican archaeology, through his rediscovery of the Mayan civilization (his two-volume Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan is also reissued in this series). But before that, having qualified and practised as a lawyer in New York, he went on a two-year journey through Egypt and the Near East, publishing an account of his experiences in 1837 (under the name of George Stephens): this reissue is of the expanded 1838 edition. The work was extremely popular, possibly because, as he states in the preface, Stephens writes 'without perplexing himself with any deep speculations upon the rise and fall of empires', nor does he give much archaeological detail. Volume 2 sees Stephens heading towards Aqaba, whence he moves northward, visiting Petra, Gaza, Hebron, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea before returning to the coast at Tyre and sailing back to Alexandria.

Stonehenge, and Tumuli Wiltunenses
  • W. M. Flinders Petrie, Richard Colt Hoare
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    11 December 2014
    First published in:
    1829
  • Begun in 1874 and published in 1880, a detailed survey of the stones of Stonehenge was one of the earliest works of William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853–1942), the energetic archaeologist who is remembered as a pioneering Egyptologist. It is reissued here alongside Sir Richard Colt Hoare's 1829 analysis of the barrows surrounding Stonehenge, thus giving modern readers a valuable two-part snapshot of nineteenth-century investigations into this famous site. Hoare (1758–1838), a Wiltshire baronet with a keen interest in archaeology and topography, conducted excavations on the site of the stones in the early 1800s, which were later referred to by Petrie, whose measurements were much more accurate (up to one tenth of an inch). Petrie's numbering system for the stones, as set out in this publication, is still in use today. Many of his groundbreaking works in Egyptology are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Lake Habitations and Pre-Historic Remains in the Turbaries and Marl-Beds of Northern and Central Italy
  • Bartolomeo Gastaldi
  • Translated by Charles Harcourt Chambers
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    12 March 2015
    First published in:
    1865
  • The son of a Turin lawyer, Bartolomeo Gastaldi (1818–79) initially followed in his father's footsteps but then abandoned the law to pursue his passion for geology and palaeontology. Later one of the founders of the Italian Alpine Club, Gastaldi was especially interested in the geology and glaciology of the Alps in his native Piedmont. The mineral gastaldite is named after him. This work, first published in Italian in 1862, is reissued here in the 1865 English translation prepared by Charles Harcourt Chambers (1826–76) for the Anthropological Society of London. Its importance lies in the meticulous descriptions, by Gastaldi and others, of the human remains and artefacts discovered at Stone Age and Bronze Age settlements on the site of lakes and peat bogs to the south of the Alps. Featuring engraved illustrations throughout, the work also includes Gastaldi's summary of discoveries since his book's first appearance.

Discoveries at Ephesus
  • Including the Site and Remains of the Great Temple of Diana
  • John Turtle Wood
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    01 January 2015
    First published in:
    1877
  • In 1863, the English architect John Turtle Wood (1821–90) resigned from a railway development project in western Turkey to begin his search at Ephesus for the Temple of Artemis, lost from view since the middle ages. In the first part of this well-illustrated 1877 publication, Wood describes the city and the initial excavations carried out with support from the British Museum. This survey of various structures concludes with Wood's work at the great theatre, where he found the Greek inscription that helped direct him to the correct location of the temple in 1869. Part II focuses on the exhausting four years that Wood spent excavating the temple, which was buried under many layers of sand. The appendix presents Greek and Latin inscriptions, with facing-page translations, from various Ephesian sites. Also reissued in this series, Edward Falkener's Ephesus (1862) includes a review of references to the temple in ancient writings.

An Account of Discoveries in Lycia
  • Being a Journal Kept during a Second Excursion in Asia Minor
  • Charles Fellows
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    05 March 2015
    First published in:
    1841
  • The traveller and archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows (1799–1860) made several trips through Asia Minor. This work, first published in 1841, is an account of the second of these journeys, recording his careful observations of the places he visited in 1840. During his first trip in 1838 he had seen the ruins of ancient cities that were hardly known to Europeans at that time, and he soon returned to focus his attention on Lycia. Fellows provides here a lively narrative of his discoveries, along with his own detailed drawings and many inscriptions in ancient Greek. His publications generated significant interest, fuelling the British Museum's desire to acquire antiquities from the region. Fellows was later knighted for his role in these acquisitions, though controversy surrounds their removal. The journal of his first trip, and his later work The Xanthian Marbles (1843), are also reissued in this series.

The Xanthian Marbles
  • Their Acquisition, and Transmission to England
  • Charles Fellows
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    05 March 2015
    First published in:
    1843
  • The traveller and archaeologist Sir Charles Fellows (1799–1860) made several trips through Asia Minor. His careful observations of ancient cities that were at that time unknown to Europeans captured the attention of readers of his published journals and fuelled the British Museum's desire to acquire antiquities from the region. This brief work, first published in 1843, seeks to explain and justify how Fellows shipped dozens of cases of sculptures and architectural remains to Malta from Xanthos, an important city in ancient Lycia. It includes correspondence relating to the practicalities of carrying out the expedition and securing permission to do so from the Ottoman authorities. Fellows was later knighted for his role in these acquisitions, though controversy surrounds their removal. His well-illustrated accounts of his two previous trips to Asia Minor are also reissued in this series.

Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea, and the Holy Land
  • Volume 1
  • John Lloyd Stephens
  • Published online:
    05 June 2015
    Print publication:
    05 March 2015
    First published in:
    1838
  • The American writer and diplomat John Lloyd Stephens (1805–52) was effectively the founder of Mesoamerican archaeology, through his rediscovery of the Mayan civilization (his two-volume Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan is also reissued in this series). But before that, having qualified and practised as a lawyer in New York, he went on a two-year journey through Egypt and the Near East, publishing an account of his experiences in 1837 (under the name of George Stephens): this reissue is of the expanded 1838 edition. The work was extremely popular, possibly because, as he states in the preface, Stephens writes 'without perplexing himself with any deep speculations upon the rise and fall of empires', nor does he give much archaeological detail. Volume 1 begins with Stephens' arrival at Alexandria in Egypt, and his journey down the Nile to the Cataracts; it ends with a visit to St Catherine's monastery in Sinai.

Page 2 of 8