Customer Reviews

Gods, Graves & Scholars: The Story of Archaeology

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This wonderful book was first published in 1949. Fifty years of new archeological discoveries and theories had elapsed.
Nevertheless it stands, undiminished, as magnificent introduction to Archeology and the Worlds of the Past: Egypt, Sumeria, Greece and Yucatan.

Mr. Ceram (pen name of the author) writes passionately about his subject.
The reader starts a discovery travel going along with amazing characters: with Schliemann in his search of Troy; with Champollion in search of the key for reading Egyptian hieroglyphs; with Carter and Howard for the unearthing of Tutankhamen's tomb. The list continues jumping from one era to other; from one continent to a different and distant one. They constitute a heterogeneous bunch united by a burning desire for knowledge, wild imagination and undaunted persistence to make their dreams real.

I first read this work when I was seventeen and discovering Europe. It helped me a lot to understand and appreciate the archeological treasures of European museums and sites.
It also instilled in me an unstoppable desire to "be there". In my adult years, I was fortunate to visit some of those places and always before starting a journey I went back to reread "Gods, Graves and Scholars".

One more feature: at the end of the book you will find useful chronologies, maps and genealogic charts, which will aid the reader to visualize easily the events described.

A book to enjoy and start a romance with the origins of our culture.
Reviewed by Max Yofre.

Gods, Graves and Scholars didn't begin as a pleasure read, as it was required reading for an undergraduate archaeology class. The 482 pages seemed daunting, even for a small paperback. But, beginning with page three and continuing through to the end, I found this book a real page-turner. Ceram successfully and craftfully takes the reader through archaeology's history, captivates the reader with personal anecdotes, and is unpretentious with language and content. Place it on your reading list or in your home library if you haven't already--this is a keeper.

This is one of the best books I ever read. Reading it with 14 for the first time I didn't know very much about archeology. Through this book I got so interested in Archeology that I read many more books about ancient Crete, Egytpt, Greece, Sumer, and the Mexican civilizations. Although anyone who really is looking for exact facts can easily find them, it is not just a simple heap of facts. Its purpose was never to be a sober school book, but Ceram himself wrote that it is intended to be a "novel of archeology that shows the suspence in reality, but lets imagination sparkle". Masterfully written this book pays it's respect not only to the masterfinds but also to the masterminds of archeology. This book will open anyone's mind to appreciate this fascinating science.

I highly enjoyed this book. I have gone through three paperbacks of it and finally broke down and bought my hard copy. I've reread this great book numerous times, and I swear it gets better with every rereading. NOTE: A great companion to this volume is Ceram's "The First American," which covers the story of NORTH AMERICAN archeaology and is every bit as exciting to read as is "God's, Graves, and Scholars." (For instance, did you know that North America also has mummies!)

If there's an archeologist inside you struggling to get out, here's an inspiring book.

This is an old book and much has happened in the field since its publication, but since this book presents the stories behind past archeological discoveries, that is not a crucial weakness.

It's great strength is the writing. Author C.W. Ceram (actually German journalist Kurt Wilhelm Marek) has a knack for turning drudgery into the sort of adventure that stirs the romantic dreamer in us. An intellectual's idea of adventure.

I haven't been the same since I first read it.

This book was first published in 1949 and then enlarged in 1967. Altogether it has been translated into 26 languages and read by many millions of people. It is easy to see why.

This book traces the origins of Archaeology and those who were involved in the great discoveries. Commencing with the great statues of Pompeii, Troy, Mycenae and Crete, we then move on to the Pyramids - with sections about all those who became involved from Napoleon to Carter. Next we find the great Towers of Assyria, Babylon and Sumeria before concluding with the great Temples of the Aztecs, Mayas and Toltecs.

This is a fascinating book which is able to give the layman an expert's insight into the greatest archaeological finds of history.

NM

I first stumbled across this book in my parents' bookcase in the '50s. Now I'm in MY 50s and I still remember the thrill I felt reading about Schliemann's discovery of Troy, the translation of the Rosetta Stone...

This book presents fascinating information in an interesting, but never sensationalized, way that grabbed this pre-teen and hasn't let go yet. I reread it every few years and always find new goodies. And because of it, a trip to Troy has been on my dream list for the past 35 years. Someday I will see what I've been reading about so avidly all these years... Homer came alive for me in high school because of what I had learned from Ceram.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone with any interest at all in the ancient world - you'll be hooked, even as I was!

Despite the vast accumulation of information in the decades since this was first published, particularly in the Americas, this remains an excellent starting point. It gives a concise but inclusive account of most of the ancient cultures known today.

p 402:

''Now, several of these pyramids located at different sites from Tula to Monte Alban have been discussed, yet one of the most important has yet to be mentioned. This is the Pyramid of Cuicuilco, which stands on a mound 22.4 feet high, situated at the southern limits of Mexico City. The Pyramid of Cuicuilco rises up out of a weird landscape of darkly stony aspect. At one time the volcanoes Ajusco and Xitli (perhaps only the latter) erupted. The god within the pyramid was apparently remiss in diverting the glowing flood of lava that flowed about the pyramid, for half the structure was drowned in bubbling muck. The archaeologists investigating this phenomenon called on colleagues from another faculty, the geologists, for help. How old is the lava, they inquired. The geologists, not realizing that their answer was knocking a world picture awry, answered: "Eight thousand years." ...Yet late research is more inclined to consider it false.''

I read this more than half a year ago, but I'll mention the one thing that's stuck with me the most: that the first Western artist attempting to sketch Mayan art was bewildered as to how to go about it, so alien was the viewpoint. I find that fascinating and revelatory, as with so many other things in this book.--J.Ruch

What Ceram does that I admire is put into the foreground the achievements of modern scholars in solving the riddles that have separated civilized man from his origins for centuries, through great mental feats, tireless physical effort, and a little dumb luck. He shows the civilized man who yearns to learn more about his predecessor, and by extention more about himself. This comparison is an invaluable tool for a civilization--if only the Babylonians had had it!

Some past reviewer seems to suggest that for every achievement of a man you must also list a proportionate failure. The truth is that as archaeologists, Carter, Layard, Champollion, Botta, Evans, Koldewey and all the others in the book were the exceptions of their times, and their merits deserve to stand by themselves. The preveous reviewer is in fact a fitting example of the kind of obstacles these men faced in their times.

Those intellelctually inclined and with a positive outlook will be encouraged by Ceram to explore further into the past, and his book covers ample topics to start out in virtually any direction you wish to take.