History : Ancient

The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives takes readers back to a civilization as complex as its contemporaries in Mesopotamia and Egypt, one that covered a far larger region, yet lasted a much briefer time (less than a millennium) and left far fewer traces.||Researchers have tentatively reconstructed a model of Indus life based on limited material remains and despite its virtually indecipherable written record. This volume describes what is known about the roots of Indus civilization in farming culture, as well as its far-flung trading network, sophisticated crafts and architecture, and surprisingly war-free way of life. Readers will get a glimpse of both a remarkable piece of the past and the extraordinary methods that have brought it back to life. more...

Price: $75.00

John Sassoon’s study of the written laws of four thousand years ago puts paid to the belief that the most ancient laws were merely arbitrary and tyrannical. On the contrary, the earliest legal systems honestly tried to get to the truth, do justice to individuals, and preserve civil order. They used the death penalty surprisingly seldom, and then more because society had been threatened than an individual killed. Some of the surviving law codes are originals, others near-contemporary copies. Together they preserve a partial but vivid picture of life in the early cites. This occupies more than half the book. Comparison of ancient with modern principles occupies the remainder and is bound to be controversial; but it is important as well as fascinating. The first act of writing laws diminished the discretion of the judges and foretold a limit on individual justice. Some political principles such as uniformity of treatment or individual freedom have, when carried to extremes, produced crises in modern legal systems world wide. more...

Price: $10.00

List of Illustrations. Abbreviations. List of Contributors. 1. Introduction. PART I Situating Literacies. 2. Writing, Reading, Public and Private "Literacies": Functional Literacy and Democratic Literacy in Greece. 3. Literacy or Literacies in Ancient Rome?. 4. Reading, Hearing, and Looking at Ephesos. 5. The Anecdote: Exploring the Boundaries between Oral and Literate Performance in the Second Sophistic. 6. Situating Literacy at Rome. PART II Books and Texts. 7. The Corrupted Boy and the Crowned Poet or the Material Reality and the Symbolic Status of the Literary Book at Rome. 8. The Impermanent Text in Catullus and Other Roman Poets. 9. Books and Reading Latin Poetry. PART III Institutions and Communities. 10. Papyrological Evidence for Book Collections and Libraries in the Roman Empire. 11. Bookshops in the Literary Culture of Rome. 12. Literary Literacy in Roman Pompeii: the Case of Virgil's Aeneid. 13. Constructing Elite Reading Communities in the High Empire. PART IV Bibliographical Essay. 14. Literacy Studies in Classics: The Last Twenty Years. PART V Epilogue. 15. Why Literacy Matters, Then and Now (May 30, 2006). Index locorum. General Index more...

Price: $74.00

This is an introduction to the Mayan civilization, including new interpretations and ongoing controversies. The book features examples of artifacts such as the murals of Bonampak and the Hieroglyphic Stairway of Copan. more...

Price: $75.00

A general introduction to Mesopotamia that covers all four of the area's major ancient civilizations - Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia. more...

Price: $75.00