Ancient history

The classic Bible tale of Joseph and his multi-coloured coat, charmingly retold for the very young. When Joseph's father gives him a brightly decorated coat, his brothers are green with envy. But kindly Joseph forgives their jealousy, in this delightful...

From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement,...

'Irresistibly fascinating' MARIE CLAIRE GREECE'Essential' VICTORIA HISLOP'Brilliantly conceived' PAUL CARTLEDGEAn enormous bestseller in Greece, this is a bold, witty retelling of the story of Ancient Greece by a rising star in archaeology Two strangers...

Uncover the incredible true story of Howard Carter’s world-changing discovery in this fun and informative retelling of the secrets of Tutankhamun’s tomb. On 4 November 1922, a young Egyptian boy working on Howard Carter’s archaeological dig in the...

'Speak my name so that I may live again' was often written on the walls of Egyptian tombs, imploring visitors to speak the names of the dead and make offerings on their behalf. These acts of continued remembrance sustained the dead in...

Connect with the celestial powers of ancient goddesses• Explores beliefs and myths from Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, and around the Mediterranean, revealing how ancient goddesses were powerful Queens of the Heavens and Guardians of the Underworld, not...

A full-color exploration of the encoded ceiling at the Temple of Dendera• Draws on more than 5,000 high-resolution photographs taken by the author to reconstruct the complete ceiling of the portico of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera• Reveals in detail...

Examines how the similarities of symbols and wisdom across many cultures point to an ancient civilizing plan and system of ancient instruction • Reveals the shared cosmological knowledge of Dogon and Maori cultures, ancient Egypt, Gobekli Tepe, Vedic...

Pyramid Power, the secret energy harnessed by the ancients, preserves food stuffs, amplifies thought forms, and increases sexual vitality. Here is the latest fabulous and provocative information on pyramids around the world, instructions on building your...

"Philosophy begins in wonder."                                     ...

In this gripping sequel to his bestselling 1177 B.C., Eric Cline tells the story of what happened after the Bronze Age collapsed why some civilisations endured, why some gave way to new ones, and why some disappeared forever.At the end of the acclaimed...

A beautifully illustrated exploration of how Latif Al Ani's photographs and contemporary Iraqi artists continue to challenge the colonial appropriation of Iraq's ancient pastBeginning in the early nineteenth century, Mesopotamian and early Islamic ruins...

A sweeping new account of ancient Greek culture and its remarkable diversity.Covering the whole of the ancient Greek experience from its beginnings late in the third millennium BCE to the Roman conquest in 30 BCE, Out of One, Many is an accessible and...

The great expedition to Sicily described in the sixth and seventh books of Thucydides' history can be depicted in a variety of ways. By some, it has been thoughtfully treated as an example of overreaching on the part of the Athenians. By others, it has...

A biography of the remarkable woman whose bestselling Mythology has introduced millions of readers to the classical world.Edith Hamilton (18671963) didn't publish her first book until she was sixty-two. But over the next three decades, this former...

An exploration of myth, legend, and origin stories passed from generation to generation.In the thirteenth century BC, a quarter of a century before the Trojan War, seven Greek warrior heroes went against the Greek city of Thebes to restore one of their...

For over three centuries, the inhabitants of North Britain faced the might of Rome, resulting in some of the most extraordinary archaeology of the ancient world.Drawing on his on his extensive experience, John H. Reid considers many of the controversies...

Will our past imitate our future?"The purpose of this book is threefold: to explain what makes civilisation civilization what it is; to show what we are in danger of losing in the event of collapse, and to point the way toward renewal."There is a...

An accessible introduction to the Bronze Age culture in Asia Minor.Famed for their skill in battle, the Hittites flourished in central Anatolia from the seventeenth to the thirteenth century BC. They were much more than a military power, however - their...

The fascinating story of how the fossils of dinosaurs, mammoths, and other extinct animals influenced some of the most spectacular creatures of classical mythologyGriffins, Centaurs, Cyclopes, and Giants - these fabulous creatures of classical mythology...

The Sumerians are widely believed to have created the world's earliest civilization on the fertile floodplains of southern Iraq from about 3500 to 2000 BC. They have been credited with the invention of nothing less than cities, writing and the...

An accessible introduction to the Indus, an extraordinary and tantalising 'lost' ancient civilisation.The Indus civilisation flourished for half a millennium from about 2600 to 1900 BC, when it mysteriously declined and vanished from view. It remained...

'Lucid and lyrical...a vivid history of Japan's turbocharged (and painful) modernisation.' - The Daily Telegraph In A History of Modern Japan, cultural historian Christopher Harding delves into the untold stories of...

Nubia, the often overlooked southern neighbour of Egypt, has been home to groups of vibrant and adaptive peoples for millennia. This book explores the Nubians' religious, social, economic and cultural histories, from their nomadic origins during...

The ultimate visual guide to Samurai history and culture! The Samurai are continuously celebrated as the greatest warriors the world has ever seen. They ruled Japan for centuries, finally uniting the nation after a prolonged period of brutal war and...

This fascinating book tells the story of the people of Japan, from ancient teenage priest-queens to teeming hordes of salarymen, a nation that once sought to conquer China, yet also shut itself away for two centuries in self-imposed seclusion...

This is ancient Greece - but not as we know it. Few people today appreciate that Greek civilisation was spread across the Middle East, and that there were Greek cities in the foothills of the Himalayas. This book tells the story of the Greeks outside...

Cyrus the Great was one of the most influential figures in history an enlightened ruler and brilliant general who created the Persian Empire, the largest empire known to man to that time. This concise and telling biography is the first for Cyrus and is...

Includes an introduction, maps, and selections from Herodotus' The Histories, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Xenophon's The Hellenica, Aristotle's The Constitution of Athens, The Parian Marble,...

A beautiful and engaging rendering of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.The Egyptian Book of the Dead is one of the oldest and greatest classics of Western spirituality. Until now, the available translations have treated these writings as historical...

Bestselling author Erich von Dniken shares the story of a 16-year-old grave-diver who discovered a mysterious labyrinth of the old kings under one of the pyramids of Saqqara.In this book, Erich von Dniken shares the story of his friend Adel H., an...

Who founded China? Are Chinese people religious? What is Chinese culture and how has it changed over time? The accessible and fun Understanding China Through Comics series answers those questions and more. For all ages, Foundations of Chinese...

In this collection British and Argentinian historians analyze the Asiatic, Germanic, peasant, slave, feudal, and tributary modes of production by exploring historical processes and diverse problems of Marxist theory. The studies treat an array of...

Greek Religion: A Sourcebook provides an introduction to the fundamentals of ancient Greek religious beliefs and rituals through a rich collection of ancient source readings. The translations draw from the Focus Classical Library sources as well as new...

A celebration and practical guide to the renowned and beloved goddess and orisha.Yemaya, queen of the sea, first emerged in Yorubaland (now in modern Nigeria). A primordial deity, considered the mother of all, some perceive her to be at the root of...

Acclaimed poet and translator Dan Beachy-Quick offers this newest addition to the Seedbank series: a warm, vivid rendering of the earliest Greek intellects, inviting us to reconsider writing, and thinking, as a way of living meaningfully in the world."We...

An arcane ritual reveals a code hidden within Thelema's most holy book.Over a period of several years, the former head of Kenneth Grant's Typhonian Order in the United States, conducted a bizarre sexual ritual with elements of Thelema, Lovecraft, and the...

John Anthony West's revolutionary reinterpretation of the civilization of Egypt challenges all that has been accepted as dogma concerning Ancient Egypt. In this pioneering study West documents that: Hieroglyphs carry hermetic messages that convey the...

This is the first systematic attempt to compare Herodotus and Thucydides as contemporaries, that is, as pre- Socratic thinkers who employed rather similar concepts and intellectual tools and who worked within the same theoretical framework or space. The...

Interpreting the monuments of Athens in light of literature, R. E. Wycherley brings before us the city the ancients knew. Philosophers, statesmen, travelers, dramatists, poets, private citizens--the words of all these suggest how the city looked at...

The end of the ancient world was long regarded by historians as a time of decadence, decline, and fall. In his career-long engagement with this era, the widely acclaimed and pathbreaking historian Peter Brown has shown, however, that the...

A bold new interpretation of Augustine's virtue of hope and its place in political lifeWhen it comes to politics, Augustine of Hippo is renowned as one of history's great pessimists, with his sights set firmly on the heavenly city rather than the public...

Words for the Heart is a captivating treasury of emotion terms drawn from some of India's earliest classical languages. Inspired by the traditional Indian genre of a 'treasury' - a wordbook or anthology of short texts or poems - this...

Adrienne Mayor is renowned for exploring the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge to find historical realities and scientific insights-glimmering, long-buried nuggets of truth-embedded in myth, legends, and...

A comprehensive and richly illustrated history of one of the most important athletic, religious, and political sites in the ancient Greek and Roman worldThe memory of ancient Olympia lives on in the form of the modern Olympic Games. But in the ancient...

An archaeologist with more than thirty seasons of excavation experience, Eric H. Cline has conducted fieldwork around the world, from Greece and Crete to Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. In Digging Deeper, Cline answers the questions archaeologists are most...

A cultural and literary history of mountains in classical antiquity.The mountainous character of the Mediterranean was a crucial factor in the history of the ancient Greek and Roman world. The Folds of Olympus is a cultural and literary history that...

Coptic emerged as the written form of the Egyptian language in the third century, when Greek was still the official language in Egypt. By the time of the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641, Coptic had almost achieved official status, but only after an...