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Rating: 
Summary: Makes you want to dig a hole
Review: "Gold-laden pharaohs, grinning skeletons, long-forgotten civilizations mantled in swirling mists: the world of archaeology evokes adventure and romance." Eyewitness to Discovery is a great find in itself with over fifty selections of great discoveries. After starting with 'The Discovery of Human Origins' Fagan takes us on a world-wide tour from the Near East to Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, finishing with how archaeology becomes a science. My favorites: Assyrian Palaces at Nimrud; Nubian kings of Kerma; Royal Cemetary at Ur; Horsemen of Pazyryk; Terracotta Army of China; Lords of Sipan....too many to list! Every armchair archaeologist should have this book.
Rating:
Summary: Archeology's greatest hits by Ronco! Call today!
Review: Archeology is a science in which much work and sweat can be expended for so little return. It's a gambler's profession in which the best guess is taken from the scant bits of evidence mixed with intuition and blind faith. If you're right, the rewards can be magnificent: an untouched tomb of an Egyptian Pharaoh, the bones of someone who died millions of years ago, perhaps the discovery of a heretofore unknown civilization. "Eyewitness to Discovery" is a wide, but not very deep, compilation of 55 archeological discoveries, edited by anthropology professor Brian Fagan. It's an anthology which prizes breadth over depth. Each account averages only four or five pages, giving a only a tantalizing taste of the complete story, and hopefully driving the curious to the bibliography to seek out those works. This schema allows Fagan to cover the major moments in the field, while drawing attention to lesser-known finds: a Paleo-Indian bison kill in Colorado, the ruins of an ancient large city in Zimbabwe, an African cemetery found in Manhattan that provoked a clash between the groups eager to reclaim their heritage, and the developers with profit margins to maintain. The classic tales are here as well, and they serve to remind us of just how well the explorers and scientists of a previous generation wrote of their finds. Here's Howard Carter's account of the opening of King Tutankhamun's tomb, at the point where he peered through a tiny breach into a room that hadn't been seen by human eyes in several thousand years: "seeing nothing [at first], the hot air escaping from the chamber caused the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold -- everywhere the glint of gold. . . . when Lord Carnarvon [who financed Carter's expeditions], unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, "Can you see anything?" it was all I could do to get out the words, Yes, wonderful things.'" Wonderful things indeed. Archeologists are popularly portrayed as either adventurers or greed heads, but some were romantics, driven by their curiosity into far-off lands. Perhaps it's because they must use their imaginations so much of the time: to look at a jumble of tottering, vine-covered buildings and see a people in the midst of their civilization. "In the midst of desolation and ruin," John Lloyd Stephens wrote in 1841 about discovering the remains of the Mayan civilization in Central America, "we looked back to the past, cleared away the gloomy forest, and fancied every building perfect, with its terraces and pyramids, it sculptured and painted ornaments, grand, lofty, and imposing, and overlooking an immense inhabited plain; we called back into life the strange people who gazed at us in sadness from the walls; pictured them, in fanciful costumes and adorned with plumes of feathers, ascending the terraces of the palace and the steps leading to the temples." Eight pages of brilliant color photos illustrate Tutankhamun's gold funerary mask, the mummified body of Ramesses II, the burial suit made of jade plaques woven together with gold thread, used by a Chinese noblewoman, and, possibly most affecting, the skeletons of a Roman family whose house was crushed during the Cyprus earthquake of 365 A.D. But even though each essay is accompanied by its own illustration or photograph, it is not enough. These accounts can so fire the imagination that one wishes for more maps, more diagrams, more pictures; to see Kathleen Kenyon's Jericho skulls, with their faces rebuilt with clay "moulded with extraordinary delicacy," the mysterious tower at Greater Zimbabwe, built without an entrance, or the 60 ancient Egyptian warriors, who died during a minor, long-forgotten siege, buried in a tomb at Thebes. "Eyewitness to Discovery" is a reminder of the labor and rewards involved in bringing to light our buried past, and is an ideal book for armchair archeologists.
Rating:
Summary: Archeology's greatest hits by Ronco! Call today!
Review: Archeology is a science in which much work and sweat can be expended for so little return. It's a gambler's profession in which the best guess is taken from the scant bits of evidence mixed with intuition and blind faith. If you're right, the rewards can be magnificent: an untouched tomb of an Egyptian Pharaoh, the bones of someone who died millions of years ago, perhaps the discovery of a heretofore unknown civilization. "Eyewitness to Discovery" is a wide, but not very deep, compilation of 55 archeological discoveries, edited by anthropology professor Brian Fagan. It's an anthology which prizes breadth over depth. Each account averages only four or five pages, giving a only a tantalizing taste of the complete story, and hopefully driving the curious to the bibliography to seek out those works. This schema allows Fagan to cover the major moments in the field, while drawing attention to lesser-known finds: a Paleo-Indian bison kill in Colorado, the ruins of an ancient large city in Zimbabwe, an African cemetery found in Manhattan that provoked a clash between the groups eager to reclaim their heritage, and the developers with profit margins to maintain. The classic tales are here as well, and they serve to remind us of just how well the explorers and scientists of a previous generation wrote of their finds. Here's Howard Carter's account of the opening of King Tutankhamun's tomb, at the point where he peered through a tiny breach into a room that hadn't been seen by human eyes in several thousand years: "seeing nothing [at first], the hot air escaping from the chamber caused the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold -- everywhere the glint of gold. . . . when Lord Carnarvon [who financed Carter's expeditions], unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously, "Can you see anything?" it was all I could do to get out the words, Yes, wonderful things.'" Wonderful things indeed. Archeologists are popularly portrayed as either adventurers or greed heads, but some were romantics, driven by their curiosity into far-off lands. Perhaps it's because they must use their imaginations so much of the time: to look at a jumble of tottering, vine-covered buildings and see a people in the midst of their civilization. "In the midst of desolation and ruin," John Lloyd Stephens wrote in 1841 about discovering the remains of the Mayan civilization in Central America, "we looked back to the past, cleared away the gloomy forest, and fancied every building perfect, with its terraces and pyramids, it sculptured and painted ornaments, grand, lofty, and imposing, and overlooking an immense inhabited plain; we called back into life the strange people who gazed at us in sadness from the walls; pictured them, in fanciful costumes and adorned with plumes of feathers, ascending the terraces of the palace and the steps leading to the temples." Eight pages of brilliant color photos illustrate Tutankhamun's gold funerary mask, the mummified body of Ramesses II, the burial suit made of jade plaques woven together with gold thread, used by a Chinese noblewoman, and, possibly most affecting, the skeletons of a Roman family whose house was crushed during the Cyprus earthquake of 365 A.D. But even though each essay is accompanied by its own illustration or photograph, it is not enough. These accounts can so fire the imagination that one wishes for more maps, more diagrams, more pictures; to see Kathleen Kenyon's Jericho skulls, with their faces rebuilt with clay "moulded with extraordinary delicacy," the mysterious tower at Greater Zimbabwe, built without an entrance, or the 60 ancient Egyptian warriors, who died during a minor, long-forgotten siege, buried in a tomb at Thebes. "Eyewitness to Discovery" is a reminder of the labor and rewards involved in bringing to light our buried past, and is an ideal book for armchair archeologists.
Rating: 
Summary: Fagan lets them speak for themselves
Review: Fagan, an excellent archaeologist in his own right and editor of the Oxford Companion to Archaeology has compiled a wonderful bedside reader of the real stories of real great discoveries located everywhere from deepest jungles to downtown New York, serving both to reinforce and dispell our notions of the romance of digging in the dirt for the past. His "taste of everything" approach seems to be an excellent way to whet the appetite of someone new to archaeological analyses. That isn't to say that the writing is deep and technical - Fagan seems to have been careful to choose work that would inform a lay reader without boring them to death. I found it an adventurous cap to my day to read 2-3 of these accounts in bed before turning the light out. They make for great dreams. Serving as both primer to the history of archaeology and archaeological procedures, not to mention an insight into the modern-day bureaucratic, social, and corporate hurdles archaeologists must jump through to secure & examine the human past, Fagan lets the researchers' expertise, bias, and frustration show through. The book also contains citations for additional reading regarding each of the stories told, so if desired one can delve from this book deep into the tomb of Tutankhamun or into the graves of a black settlement in Manhattan.
Rating:
Summary: The confections of the human career
Review: Opening this book is like viewing a box of Valentine's Day confections. With so many options, you may savour some lightly while devouring others outright. You are, after all, dealing with the grand reach of human existence in this collection. Closing the final page, you realise that you've consumed a rich variety of samplings of our past. Fagan has selected over fifty striking accounts of archaelogical enterprise for you. The tastes run from the romantic to the dedicated scientific. Whatever your tastes in reading about our past, there's bound to be something to please. Certainly, there are no disappointments. As with that selection of chocolates, do you rush to your favourite immediately or "save the best 'til last"?
Fagan organises his selections into three major themes - human origins, "great discoveries" and the development of archaeology as a true science. After a fine introduction to his material and a diagram to keep you oriented in time and place, he presents his subjects. With a descriptive introduction to the writers, he takes you from early humans to historical archaeology. It's disputable, of course, but Raymond Dart's article on the Taung Baby is likely the best of the first section. Certainly, no find had greater significance than Dart's realisation that this young, tiny, but ancient creature pushed the beginnings of humanity deeper in the past than anyone had imagined. The story of "establishment" archaeologists resisting Dart's assertions needs frequent retelling - if only to prevent recurrance.
In "The Great Discoveries" Fagan shows how archaeology slowly, hesitantly moved from a rich man's [and sometimes woman's] hobby to begin to take its place as a serious science. Early archaeology sported some memorable characters - among them an Italian circus "strong man" and diggers who sought to validate the history of the Christian Bible. Fagan's selections demonstrate how archaeology matured from an off-hand avocation by those seeking to find the newest or more exotic artefacts to a science assessing how our ancestors once lived. An offshoot of this maturity was the realisation that Western Europe had no monopoly on culture. With so many of the "Great Discoveries" being made in African jungles, hidden Latin American sites and forgotten enclaves in Asia, cultural "superiority" concepts blurred.
Archaeology's maturity as a science was delayed until the 20th Century. Part of the delay was technological - carbon dating, a product of World War II, created unimagined timelines for global cultures. Darwin's evolution by natural selection blended with Mendelian genetics brought a new aspect of commonality to humanity. Archaeology turned from pharaohs and kings to village trash heaps and middens. How people truly lived isn't answered by royal mummies and aristocratic tombs. Archaeology increasingly focussed on people like those reading this. The picture they've drawn has achieved a clarity never anticipated by manor lords pondering Stonehenge or the Pyramids.
Although nearly all the material in this collection is derived from existing books, this comprehensive collection is unique. It's an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the history, techniques and personalities of archaeology. A small set of colour plates and some photos and diagrams, but not nearly enough of either, add to the text. The Bibliography is adequate - no other term applies when the choice is "overwhelming" or "meagre". [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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