James Howard Wellard (1909–1987)

Interesting read and a serious work of historical archaeology, even though very lightweight.

It contains a dozen chapters, each describing the search for or discovery of a particular lost city, from Sodom and Gomorrah to Tarxien. The focus is mostly on its discoverers, less so on trying to recreate the history of the inhabitants. Particularly, unsurprisingly for the author's interests, the main focus is in Arabia. With such short coverage on each it's not a detailed book but it is a good read overall and one that inspires the reader to delve further into some of them. There's also a detailed bibliography that would be of great interest to those looking at the published history of 19th century explorations.… (meer)

Public interest into the Romans' enigmatic predecessors, the Etruscans, is much like the tide. It ebbs and flows as discoveries are made. Since the only evidence we have for them is from the few tombs that have discovered, they are still, after over 100 years of excavations, incredibly mysterious.

A few things have been learned -- women, it seems, held equally honored places as men in Etruscan society, something almost unheard of in most places even today. They also seems to enjoy life far more than other Europeans -- perhaps even as much as the Egyptians.

The findings discussed in this book are way out of date, of course, since it was written nearly 40 years ago. However, what is presented here is an excellent introduction to these interesting folk.

If you find a copy in a library or used book rack, you might want to pick it up for a few hours of interesting diversion.… (meer)