A perfect introduction to mathematical concepts for young readers, written by a Newbery honor-winning author!This colorfully illustrated biography of the Greek philosopher and scientist Eratosthenes, who compiled the first geography book and accurately measured the globe's circumference, is just right for budding mathematicians, scientists, historians, and librarians! Filled with fascinating details about Eratosthenes's world (and in print since 1994), kids are sure to flip through the pages time and again.

    These myths featured gods and goddesses, mighty beings who look human but have amazing powers and live forever. Now you can meet these extraordinary characters and hear their legends, brought to life again by Aliki in this splendid, panoramic look at the amazing stories and characters of Greek legend. "[Will meet the] demand for basic information on the gods and goddesses at the primary level."—BL. "Aliki's fans will welcome her introduction to these famous Greeks."—SLJ. 1994 "Pick of the Lists" (ABA)

    Who was the first king of ancient Egypt, and who was the last? Which Egyptian queens ruled in their own right? What in fact do we know about the 170 or more pharoahs whose names have down to us?

    The selections are divided into three sections: the first is classical authors on the ancient celts - a huge selection including both the well known Herodotos, Plato, Aristotle, Livy, Diogenes Laertius, and Cicero - and the obscure-Pseudo-Scymnus, Lampridius, Vopsicus, Clement of Alexandria and Ptolemy I. The second is early Irish and Hiberno-Latin sources including early Irish dynastic poetry and numerous tales from the Ulster cycle and the third consists of Brittonic sources, mostly Welsh. This edition includes three new early Irish tales, translated by Mairin Ni Dhonnchadha: The Birth of Aed Slaine; Fingal Ronain, and the Story of Mis and Dubh Rois.

    But how do these images compare with the evidence revealed by the excavator's trowel? Recent archaeological research has transformed our understanding of the period. Reflecting this new generation of scholarship, Professor Barry Raftery presents the most convincing and up-to-date account yet published of Ireland in the millennium before the coming of Christianity.The transition from Bronze Age to Iron Age in Ireland brought many changes, not least the proliferation of imposing hillforts. Did these have a purely defensive role, or were they built for ceremonial or commercial purposes? When did the Celtic character of early Ireland emerge? New findings indicate that the construction of the country's great royal centers, such as Tara and Emain Macha, coincides with the first appearance in Ireland of the material culture of the European Celts - so-called La Tene artifacts. The author argues that these were the portable trappings of a rising aristocratic elite, which expressed its power by building highly visible monuments.Professor Raftery also discusses the significant advances that took place in travel and transport, including the creation of the largest roadway in prehistoric Europe; the elusive lives of the common people; the idiosyncratic genius of the local metalsmiths; and the complex religious beliefs exemplified by standing stones, and offerings in rivers and lakes. He presents fascinating new material about Ireland's contacts with the Roman world, and in a final chapter he reviewsthe whole question of whether La Tene culture spread to Ireland through invasion or peaceful diffusion. Pagan Celtic Ireland is the definitive statement of what we currently know about the country's shadowy, Celtic origins. Generously illustrated throughout, it will be read avidly

    By lucidly revealing the common threads that connect the ancient confrontations between Athens & Sparta & between Rome & Carthage with the two calamitous world wars of the 20th century & the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kagan reveals new insights into the nature of war & peace that are vitally important & often surprising.

    One of the world's foremost experts on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran community that produced them provides an authoritative new English translation of the two hundred longest and most important nonbiblical Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran, along with an introduction to the history of the discovery and publication of each manuscript and the background necessary for placing each manuscript in its actual historical context.

    Building on twenty years of research and debate, Dorie Reents-Budet and her collaborators Joseph W. Ball, Ronald L. Bishop, Virginia M. Fields, and Barbara MacLeod bring together many perspectives, including the art historical, archaeological, epigraphical, and ethnohistorical, to examine one of the world’s great but overlooked painting traditions. With an emphasis on sixth- to eighth-century pottery featuring both pictorial and hieroglyphic imagery, Painting the Maya Universe presents an extraordinary exploration of the cultural roles and meanings of these Guatemalan, Belizean, and Mexican elite painted ceramics. Maya pottery is discussed both in aesthetic terms and for the important information it reveals about Maya society, artistry, politics, history, religion, and ritual. The range of ceramic painting styles developed during this period is also presented and defined in detail. Painting the Maya Universe is the first publication to present a definitive translation of the hieroglyphic texts painted on these objects. With many glyphs deciphered here for the first time, this analysis reveals much about how these vessels were perceived and used by the Maya, their owners’ names, and, in several cases, the names of the artists who created them. This information is combined with archaeological and other data, including nuclear chemical analyses, to correlate painting styles with specific Maya sites.Published in conjunction with Duke University Museum of Art and an exhibition touring the United States, Painting the Maya Universe presents an astonishing visual record as well as a monumental scholarly achievement. With photographs by Justin Kerr, the foremost photographer of pre-Columbian art, it includes over 90 unique full-color rollout photographs, each showing the entire surface of an object in a single frame. The book also addresses the questions and controversy regarding the loss of information that occurs when objects are removed from their archaeological context to become part of public and private collections. Painting the Maya Universe will energize discussion of Maya pottery, hieroglyphic texts, and iconography. Its photographs, a lasting resource on this great painting tradition, will stimulate and delight the eye. It is a breakthrough in art history and Latin American scholarship that will enrich general readers and scholars alike.

    Superb photography includes hundreds of images of excavated chambers and amazing artifacts. This text journeys to both familiar civilizations and sites and lesser known ones, and summarizes archaeologists' findings. Includes more than 575 color photos, illustrations, and maps.

    It is happening here and now, all around us. This groundbreaking book combines narrative, personal accounts, and focused channeled material into a penetrating look at the contact experience. What actually happens during contact? How does it change our perceptions of reality? Most of all -- how can we learn to remember contact experiences more clearly? The authors confront these questions as they examine the process of preparing contact.

    In this book some of Israel’s foremost archaeologists present a thorough and up-to-date survey of this research, providing an assessable introduction to early life in the land of the Bible. The authors discuss the history of ancient Israel from the Neolithic era (eighth millennium B.C.E.) to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. Each chapter describes a different era as seen through relevant archaeological discoveries. The reader is introduced to the first permanent settlements in the land of Israel, the crystallization of the political system of city-states, the nature of Canaanite culture, the Israelite patterns of settlement, and the division of the country into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The lavishly illustrated text explores and demonstrates developments in religious practices, architecture, technology, customs, arts and crafts, warfare, writing, cult practices, and trade. The book will be a delightful and informative resource for anyone who has ever wanted to know more about the religious, scientific, or historical background to the events described in the Bible, or to current developments in the Middle East.

    They were first made in Egypt as early as 4000 BC and were essential adornments for both the living and the dead. Crafted from gold and silver, semiprecious stones, and less valuable materials, they are fine examples of Egyptian art as well as a vital source of evidence for religious beliefs.In this book, Carol Andrews offers the first comprehensive account of the types of amulets made, their symbolism, and their protective powers. An amuletic foot could be worn to ensure fleetness of foot, a hand for dexterity. The desert-dwelling hare symbolized keenness of the senses, and the hedgehog, which hibernated and survived outside the fertile valley, held connotations of rebirth and triumph over death itself. The ubiquitous amulet in the shape of the dung beetle, known as a scarab, was symbolic of new life. Amulets in the image of powerful gods would be worn for protection, and malevolent creatures, like the male hippopotamus, would be worn to ward off the evil they represented.Both a reference book and an informative account of Egyptian magical belief, this is the most complete survey of the subject to date.

    World experts in science have always clashed in debating the origin of man however, a Geneticist from the University of California in Berkeley, using gene analysis, recently asserted that, "all modern races derived from an African Woman." As far as biochemist is concerned, the genetic evidence for evolution of modern people is so conclusive that the counter arguments have no validity. For most Americans and African Americans, the study of origins has been approached from a Eurocentric worldview. The effect of this worldview on African Americans has been the development of mental slavery. King's research brings provisions that may challenge the very existence of biological racism that European science established to control behavior. His research is in rhythm with Neely Fuller Jr's views on African American priorities

    This revisionist study offers a comprehensive look at how Christian women of this time initiated alternative, ascetic ways of living, both with and without men. The author studies how these practices were institutionalized, and why they were later either eliminated or transformed by a new Christian Roman elite of men now thought of as the founding fathers.

    Inheriting a kingdom near collapse, he left to his son Alexander the strongest state in Eastern Europe. He developed new military technology and made Macedonia the greatest power in the Western world. He created a united, multiracial kingdom based on liberal principles, and added to it the resources of a Balkan empire. Most important, he inspired the city-states of the Greek peninsula to form a unified community, ensuring peace among its members, the rule of law in internal politics, and collective security in the face of agressors. No statesman in Europe had ever achieved so much.In Philip of Macedon N. G. L. Hammond presents a narrative history of Hellenistic Macedonia from the state's rise out of obscurity under Philip to the accession of Alexander. Focusing on the character and career of Philip, Hammond discusses developments in military technology and strategy, the social composition and geography of northern Greece, and the region's political developments. He also examines the world of the city-states, the nature of their democracies, their propensity for interstate warfare, and their development of capitalism, scientific methods, and philosophical ideas.With close analysis of the literary and material evidence—including interpretations of recent archaeological discoveries—Hammond offers a unique portrait of Philip as a Macedonian. The book also reveals the culture and artistry of the Macedonian people who made Philip's success possible, with illustrations of the frescoes and artifacts found in the Royal Tombs at Vergina in 1977.

    Traces the history of the Roman Empire from the days of the Republic through the reign of the Caesars and the influence of Christianity to the fall of Rome.

    It is a part of the Old Testament Library series.The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing

    She lives for her land, but when her sister Leslie writes from Seattle to say that she is in danger, Marissa leaves her open-range paradise to help her. Once in Seattle, Marissa encounters a doctor conducting ancient Druid time travel rituals using nectar extracted from the rare night orchid. Leslie appears to be a victim of the doctor's ill-gotten powers, as is Alek--a glorious pre-Roman warrior--who is trapped in the modern world. Soon Marissa and Alex discover that though two millennia separate their lives, nothing can sever the bond forged between their hearts.

    The Israelites did not adopt an ancient Canaanite ancestor cult that became the object of biblical scorn. Yet, a variety of mortuary rituals and cults were performed in Levantine society; mourning and funerary rites and longer-term rituals such as the care for the dead and commemoration. Rituals and monuments in or at burial sites, and especially the recitation of the deceased's name, recounted the dead's lived lives for familial survivors. They served broader social functions as well; e.g., to legitimate primogeniture and to reinforce a community's social collectivity.Another ritual complex from the domain of divination, namely necromancy, might have expressed the Israelite dead's beneficent powers. Yet, was this power to reveal knowledge that of the dead or was it a power conveyed through the dead, but that remained attributable to another supranatural being of non-human origin? Contemporary Assyrian necromancers utilized the ghost as a conduit through which divine knowledge was revealed to ascertain the future and so Judah's king Manasseh, a loyal Assyrian vassal, emulated these new Assyrian imperial forms of prognostication. As a de-legitimating rhetorical strategy, necromancy was then integrated into biblical traditions about the more distant past and attributed fictive Canaanite origins (Deut 18). In its final literary setting, necromancy was depicted as the Achille's heel of the nation's first royal dynasty, that of the Saulides (1 Sam 28), and more tellingly, its second, that of the Davidides (2 Kgs 21:6; 23:24).

    Finding it difficult to account for the prevalence of dream-divination, modern scholarship has often condemned it as a cultural weakness, a mass lapse into mere superstition. In this book, Patricia Cox Miller draws on pagan, Jewish, and Christian sources and modern semiotic theory to demonstrate the integral importance of dreams in late-antique thought and life. She argues that Graeco-Roman dream literature functioned as a language of signs that formed a personal and cultural pattern of imagination and gave tangible substance to ideas such as time, cosmic history, and the self.Miller first discusses late-antique theories of dreaming, with emphasis on theological, philosophical, and hermeneutical methods of deciphering dreams as well as the practical uses of dreams, especially in magic and the cult of Asclepius. She then considers the cases of six Graeco-Roman dreamers: Hermas, Perpetua, Aelius Aristides, Jerome, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianus. Her detailed readings illuminate the ways in which dreams provided solutions to ethical and religious problems, allowed for the reconfiguration of gender and identity, provided occasions for the articulation of ethical ideas, and altogether served as a means of making sense and order of the world.

    It is a part of the Old Testament Library series.The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.

    Wealthy Romans lavished resources on shaping their surroundings to impress their crowds of visitors. The fashions they set were taken up and imitated by ordinary citizens. In this illustrated book, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill explores the rich potential of the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum to offer new insights into Roman social life. Exposing misconceptions derived from contemporary culture, he shows the close interconnection of spheres we take as discrete: public and private, family and outsiders, work and leisure.Combining archaeological evidence with Roman texts and comparative material from other cultures, Wallace-Hadrill raises a range of new questions. How did the organization of space and the use of decoration help to structure social encounters between owner and visitor, man and woman, master and slave? What sort of households did the inhabitants of the Roman house form? How did the world of work relate to that of entertainment and leisure? How widely did the luxuries of the rich spread among the houses of craftsmen and shopkeepers? Through analysis of the remains of over two hundred houses, Wallace-Hadrill reveals the remarkably dynamic social environment of early imperial Italy, and the vital part that houses came to play in defining what it meant to live as a Roman.

    The nature of that achievement, though, looks increasingly problematic in the light of recent work on such topics as literacy, orality, rhetoric, narrative technique, and the invention of tradition. In this book, eight ancient historians consider both the achievement and the problems involved in the study of the Greek historians. These essays reflect the best and most recent scholarship on the subject.

    Such is the conviction expressed in this provocative book, which is certain to arouse widespread comment and discussion.What does it mean to be a citizen in a democracy? Indeed, how do we educate for democracy? These questions are addressed here by thirteen historians, classicists, and political theorists, who critically examine ancient Greek history and institutions, texts, and ideas in light of today's political practices and values. They do not idealize ancient Greek democracy. Rather, they use it, with all its faults, as a basis for measuring the strengths and shortcomings of American democracy. In the hands of the authors, ancient Greek sources become partners in an educational dialogue about democracy's past, one that goads us to think about the limitations of democracy's present and to imagine enriched possibilities for its future.The authors are diverse in their opinions and in their political and moral commitments. But they share the view that insulating American democracy from radical criticism encourages a dangerous complacency that Athenian political thought can disrupt.

    All Latin and Greek source material is translated.

    Durant, in this second volume of The Story of Civilizationtells the whole story of Hellas, from the days of Crete's vast Aegean empire to the extirpation of the last remains of Greek liberty, crushed under the heel of an implacably forward-marching Rome. The dry minutiae of battles and sieges, torturous statecraft of tyrant and king, are given less emphasis in what is pre-eminently a vivid recreation of Greek culture, written in a supple and vigorous prose

    The drama thus enacted, whether in the theatre proper or in the political arena, unfolds in all its complexity in Actors in the Audience. This is a book about language, theatricality and empire - about how the Roman emperor dramatized his rule and how his subordinates in turn staged their response. The focus is on Nero: his performances onstage spurred his contemporaries to reflect on the nature of power and representation, and to make the stage a paradigm for larger questions about the theatricality of power. Through these portrayals by ancient writers, Shadi Bartsch explores what happens to language and representation when all discourse is distorted by the pull of an autocratic authority.

    The reader will find concise entries on every rabbinic personality mentioned in the Talmud, major and minor alike, and will discover such facts as their dates of birth, education, and occupation. Most entries are accompanied by a brief story about the rabbinic personality, with sources cited for easy reference.

    It includes entries on personalities, events, politics, literature, art and society.