Search results for ""author ivor noël hume""

The Italian son of a barber. A failed hydraulic engineer. A giant who performed feats of strength and agility in the circus. Giovanni Belzoni (1778-1824) was all of these before going on to become one of the most controversial figures in the history of Egyptian archaeology. A man of exceptional size with an ego of comparable proportions, he procured for the British Museum some of its largest and still awe-inspiring treasures. Today, however, the typical museum visitor knows nothing of Belzoni, and many modern archaeologists dismiss him as an ignorant vandal.In this captivating new biography, Ivor Noël Hume re-creates an early nineteenth century in which there was no established archaeological profession, only enormous opportunity. Belzoni landed in Egypt, where he was unsuccessful in selling a hydraulic machine of his own invention, and came under the patronage of diplomat Henry Salt, who convinced him to travel to Thebes in search of artifacts. Among the many treasures Belzoni would bring back was the seven-ton stone head of Ramesses II, the ""Young Memnon.""The book includes gripping accounts of Belzoni's wildly productive, and physically brutal, expeditions, as well as an unforgettable portrait of his wife, Sarah, who suffered the hardships of the Egyptian deserts and later bore the brunt of the disillusionment that came with the declining popular perception of her husband. Including numerous illustrations, many in color, this volume brings one of archaeology's most fascinating figures vividly to life.

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The Archaeology of Martin's Hundred explores the history and artifacts of a 20,000-acre tract of land in Tidewater, Virginia, one of the most extensive English enterprises in the New World. Settled in 1618, all signs of its early occupation soon disappeared, leaving no trace above ground. More than three centuries later, archaeological explorations uncovered tantalizing evidence of the people who had lived, worked, and died there in the seventeenth century. Part I: Interpretive Studies addresses four critical questions, each with complex and sometimes unsatisfactory answers: Who was Martin? What was a hundred? When did it begin and end? Where was it located? We then see how scientific detective work resulted in a reconstruction of what daily life must have been like in the strange and dangerous new land of colonial Virginia. The authors use first-person accounts, documents of all sorts, and the treasure trove of artifacts carefully unearthed from the soil of Martin's Hundred. Part II: Artifact Catalog illustrates and describes the principal artifacts in 110 figures. The objects, divided by category and by site, range from ceramics, which were the most readily and reliably datable, to glass, of which there was little, to metalwork, in all its varied aspects from arms and armor to rail splitters' wedges, and, finally, to tobacco pipes. The Archaeology of Martin's Hundred is a fascinating account of the ways archaeological fieldwork, laboratory examination, and analysis based on lifelong study of documentary and artifact research came together to increase our knowledge of early colonial history. Copublished with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

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