GODS, GRAVES & SCHOLARS: The Story of Archaeology

Table of Contents

I. THE BOOK OF THE STATUES

Pompeii, Troy, Mycene, Crete

I the Queen of Naples: From her Garden to Pompeii – 3

II Winckelmann: The Birth of a Scientist – 10

III Interlude: Why Search for the Past? – 16

IV Schliemann (I): A Merchant Digs for Trojan Gold – 26

V Schliemann (II): THe Mask of Agamemnon – 41

VI Schliemann (III): Conflict with the Scholars – 49

VII Schliemann (V): Mycenae, Tiryns, Crete – 57

VIII Evans: Crete and the Minotaur – 61

II. THE BOOK OF THE PYRAMIDS

The Empires of Egypt

IX Napoleon: In the Land of the Pharaohs – 75

X Champollion (I): The Mystery of the Rosetta Stone – 88

XI Champollion (II): Treason and Hieroglyphics – 99

XII Belzoni, Lepsius, and Mariette: Life in Ancient Egypt – 117

XIII Petrie: The Tomb of Amenemhet – 136

XIV Robbers in the Valley of the Kings – 152

XV Mummies – 162

XVI Carter: The Tomb of Tutankhamen – 176

XVII Carter: The Cure of the Pharaohs – 190

III THE BOOK OF THE TOWERS

The Kingdoms of Assyria, Babylonia, and Sumeria

XVIII Botta Finds Nineveh – 211

XIX Grotefend: A Schoolmaster Deciphers Cuneiform – 223

XX Rawlinson: Nebuchadnezzar’s Dictionary in Clay – 236

XXI Layard: A Dilettante Outwits a Pasha – 243

XXII George Smith: The Story of the Flood – 265

XXIII Koldewey: The Tower of Babel – 279

XXIV Wolley: The Oldest Culture in the World – 297

IV THE BOOK OF THE TEMPLES

The Empires of the Aztecs, the Mayas, and the Toltecs

XXV Cortes (I): The Treasure of Moctezuma – 323

XXVI Cortes (II): The Beheaded Culture – 335

XXVII John Lloyd Stephens Buys a Jungle City – 348

XXVIII Intermezzo – 366

XXIX The Mystery of the Abandoned Mayan Cities – 370

XXX Edward Herbert Thompson: Chichen-Itza and the Sacred Wall – 387

XXXI Aztecs, Mayas and Toltecs: Whence Did They Come? – 405

V BOOKS THAT CANNOT YET BE WRITTEN

XXXII New Searches in Old Empires – 419

Chronological Tables – 430

Bibliography – 433

Index follows page 442

Selected Quotes:

“This has become the archaeologist’s grandiose task: to make dried-up wellsprings bubble forth again, to make the forgotten known again, the dead alive, and to cause to flow once more that historic stream in which we are all encompassed.”

“Archaeology, I found, comprehended all manner of excitement and achievement. Adventure is coupled with bookish toil. Romantic excursions go hand in hand with scholarly self-discipline and moderation. Explorations among the ruins of the remote past have carried curious men all over the face of the earth… Yet in truth, no science is more adventurous than archaeology, if adventure is thought of as a mixture of spirit and deed.”

C. W. Ceram (January 20, 1915 – April 12, 1972) was the pseudonym of German journalist and author Kurt Wilhelm Marek, known for his popular works about archaeology. He chose to write under a pseudonym to distance himself from his earlier work as a propagandist for the Third Reich.

Ceram was born in Berlin. During World War II, he was a member of the Propagandatruppe. His works from that period include Wir hielten Narvik, 1941, and Rote Spiegel – überall am Feind. Von den Kanonieren des Reichsmarschalls, 1943.

In 1949, Ceram wrote his most famous book, Götter, Gräber und Gelehrte — published in English as Gods, Graves and Scholars: The Story of Archaeology — an account of the historical development of archaeology. Published in 28 languages, Ceram’s book eventually received a printing of over 5 million copies, and is still in print today. His very first article in this vein was about Epigraphy entitled: On the Decipherment of an Unknown Script and was published in the Berliner Illustrierte (1935).

Other books by the author include The Secret of the Hittites (1956),March of Archaeology (1958) and The First American (1971), a book on ancient North American history. Under his actual name he wroteYestermorrow: Notes on Man’s Progress (1961); Hands on the Past: The Pioneer Archaeologists Tell Their Own Story (1966).

Kurt Marek was responsible for the publication of A Woman in Berlin, presented as the non-fiction account of a German woman raped by Red Army troops.

He died at Hamburg in 1972.

The Ceram Prize in archaeology is named after him.

Source: Wikipedia