Dr. Anne Ross writes from wide experience of living in Celtic-speaking communities where she has traced vernacular tradition. She employs archaeological and anthropoligical evidence, as well as folklore, to provide broad insight into the early Celtic world.

    From 1934, Thom became interested in the megalithic culture that had erected the stone circles, rows and other monuments in Neolithic and Bronze Age Britain. He began to accurately survey these sites, and in 1967 published Megalithic Sites in Britain, which claimed that the builders had been skilled surveyors and astronomers, and had used an identical and accurate unit of length to mark out their constructions throughout Britain, a length he called the Megalithic yard (2.72 feet or 0.829m).Thom also discovered that the geometry being used was based on right-angled ‘Pythagorean’ triangles, triangles whose sides were whole numbers of this same megalithic yard, or subdivisions or multiples of it. He also proposed that the builders were observing both the sun and moon using precision alignments to identified sites or natural features on a distant horizon. He even showed that they could have predicted eclipses. The book was described by archaeologist Professor Richard Atkinson as ‘a well-constructed time-bomb dropped through the letterbox of archaeology’, and it caused a huge rumpus within the profession. In effect Thom had demonstrated that there was a huge missing component in our understanding of the Megalithic culture, one that archaeologists had totally missed, and that our model of prehistory was flawed and hopelessly inadequate.

    

    List of PlatesList of Text-figuresPrefaceThe Earliest British Iron Age Iron B & Iron C in BritainCaesar's Expeditions Caesar to Claudius The Rebellion of Boudicca & its Aftermath The Flavian Period Hadrian's Frontier The Antonine Wall & the Frontier in the 2nd Century Severus & the 3rd Century The Administration of Roman BritainThe Roman Army in BritainThe Towns The Countryside Trade & Industry The Romanisation of Britain Carausius & the 4th Century The End of Roman BritainList of AbbreviationsSelect BibliographyIndex Abbreviations 378 Select Bibliography 380

    The earliest date from the time of King Sargon of Akkad (about 2334-2279 B.C), the latest from the period of Persian domination over Mesopotamia (beginning 539 B.C.). The tablets come either from Mesopotamia proper or from regions to the west, even from as far as Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Egypt. Oppenheim selected these letters from many thousands of published clay tablets of this type to provide a panoramic view of Mesopotamian civilization during this extended span of time. His purpose in making such an anthology is to convey a more intimate and varied image of this civilization than that offered by the readily available translations of Akkadian epic texts, royal inscriptions, and law codes. Although the selection is, ultimately, subjective, two guiding principles were adopted: he chose the atypical rather than the typical to reproduce, however inadequately, the kaleidoscopic diversity of life as mirrored in these documents; and he concentrated on letters that are reasonably well preserved and that do not urgently require comment and elucidation.