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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply breathtaking,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Ancient Cities Brought to Life (Hardcover)
If you have ever enjoyed reading great historical fiction novel whether it be set in Ancient Persia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Brittania and all sides of the compass thereafter you will come across many famous cities mentioned in the text. No matter how great the authors skill, its still impossible sometimes to fully comprehend how those cities looked in all their sprawling ancient glory and magnificence.
However Jean-Claude Golvins book provides a beautifully documented solution to this dilemma. Covering 9 historical regions and 71 cities he has recreated stunningly detailed watercolour/ink panoramic works (birdseye view), maps, and diagrams that show how the ancient city in question looked, where is was found and how it was layed out in design. There are support maps that number the key buildings relevant to that city and these numbers link to a dialogue box. This box gives short but informative notes on a variety of things such as the structures history, size, capacity, materials, cultural significance to the local population, date of creation and key people behind its coming into being as well as functionality. Each city has additional information provided....usually two or three paragraphs for the lesser known cities eg# Spalato (present day Split of Croatia) where the layout of the city is described and meant to be read while looking at the sprawling watercolour depictions of the city. In this key architectual features are pointed out eg# an octaval shaped mausoleum or colannaded arcade. In a more famous city like Babylon, Rome, Athens, Alexandria etc there maybe two or three pages of information as opposed to mere paragraphs. This is to allow explanation of the greater store of knowledge known about these cities. In Alexandria's case this includes the famous Library with 700,000 scrolls covering all known disciplines of the time, who its founder was, the famous lighthouse, the giant necropolis, the gymnasium with porticos longer than a modern day football field etc etc Each key feature of the city comes with a short history lesson and description of what went into building it. The book may disappoint those who like lots of text on each city or region covered. In this respect its short of detailed narrative but to the point. The text is really secondary to the images on display that recreate cities we would only know in the form of crumbling ruins in photo form or whose key features we may see whole in painting or drawing form in some books, while the rest of the city is ignored. The one addition to the book I would have liked to have seen is that the big cities like Rome are not shown across a period of time. Ancient Rome is shown as the city at the time of 4th Century AD. It would have been nice to see it at the time of Julius or Augustus Caesar and say 100- 200 years later and say then at 4th C AD as so much change takes place. In the case of Babylon this doesnt matter as that city did not long survive antiquity. But for Rome and Athens (depicted in 5th C BC only) it would have helped given they spanned a millenia of Ancient history. To me having read about Ancient Thebes or Alexandria it was enough to be see the city depicted so that nearly every building - great of small is visible, as is the layout and shape and the surrounding geography. The birdseye view angle of the drawings is amazing. Whether you are a keen novel reader curious as to the world your books characters are roaming, in need of a coffee table book that sparks converstion, seeking some additional research material that provides visual representation to spur the imagination or needing something to breathe life into your own writing prose set in Ancient times then this is a terriffic book to own. Highly recommended.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Archaeological Illustration at its Very Best,
By
This review is from: Ancient Cities Brought to Life (Hardcover)
I am a huge fan of archaeological illustrators who attempt to recreate ancient buildings and cities. The French archaeologist/illustrator Jean Claude Golvin is one of the best illustrators working in this field. He is right up there with Peter Connolly, David Macaulay and Francesco Corni. His special niche is the birdseye view of cities. Finding "Ancient Cities Brought to Life" in English is a very difficult task. I had to settle on the German edition that I could not read. Nevertheless, his illustrations are thrilling and this book is a must purchase for all fans of the genre. Over the years, Jean Claude Golvin has produced a number of beautiful books and I can only hope that someone will republish them in English. Highly recommended.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
unique producton,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Ancient Cities Brought to Life (Hardcover)
this volume is unique in its remarkable illustrations of a host of ancient cities. Urban areas across the breadth of the ancient world are revealed in an appealing manner with a concise and appropriate narrative. I can find no other comparative work giving us a glimpse of the ancient world's city-scapes.
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