Twelve essays, written by various scholars and originally published in Spanish, explore the ways in which Phoenician colonization of the Iberian Peninsula was a function of Assyrian westward expansion. Selected articles include: The Phoenician Settlement of the 8th Century B.C. in Morro de Mezquitilla (Algarrobo, Malaga) by H. Schubart, Phoenician Trade in the West: Balance and Perspectives by M.E. Aubet Semmler, and The Ancient Colonization of Ibiza: Mechanisms and Process by J. Ramon.
Beyond the Aegean, some of the earliest written records of Europe come from the south-west, what is now southern Portugal and south-west Spain. Herodotus, the 'Father of History', locates the Keltoi or 'Celts' in this region, as neighbours of the Kunetes of the Algarve. He calls the latter the 'westernmost people of Europe'. However, modern scholars have been disinclined - until recently - to consider the possibility that the south-western inscriptions and other early linguistic evidence from the kingdom of Tartessos were Celtic. This book shows how much of this material closely resembles the attested Celtic languages: Celtiberian (spoken in east-central Spain) and Gaulish, as well as the longer surviving langiages of Ireland, Britain and Brittany. In many cases, the 85 Tartessian inscriptions of the period c. 750-c. 450 BC can now be read as complete statements written in an Ancient Celtic language.
The book concentrates on the cultures that arose in Europe after the dispersal of the Aryan-speaking people from their homeland north of the Black Sea during BC 4th millenium. Relying on mythology, history and archeology the author has traced the development and movements of the "Q-Celt" and "P-Celt" speaking peoples of Europe and Asia Minor. The time span covers from BC 3rd millenium to the Roman occupation of Celtic Europe. The emphasis is on the Bronze and Iron Ages. The result is a comprehensive overview of the people we have come to call the Celts. The work uses a clear language style and is organized as an encyclopedia for easy reference. Over 50 sub-cultures, 260 tribes and 1000 characters (dieties, heroes, warriors, etc.) are listed alphabetically, with separate chapters describing religious practices, customs, social structure, etc. as well as relevant museum collections and sites of interest. Complete 5 volume set, ISBN 1581128894, US $129.95 Vol 1, ISBN 1581128908, US $25.95 Vol II, ISBN 1581128916, US $25.95 Vol III, ISBN 1581128924, US $25.95 Vol IV, ISBN 1581128932, US $25.95 Vol V, ISBN 1581128940, US $25.95
The Indo-European language family consists of many of the modern and ancient languages of Europe, India and Central Asia, including Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Russian, German, French, Spanish and English. Spoken by an estimated three billion people, it has the largest number of native speakers in the world today. This textbook provides an accessible introduction to the study of the Indo-European languages. It clearly sets out the methods for relating the languages to one another, presents an engaging discussion of the current debates and controversies concerning their classification, and offers sample problems and suggestions for how to solve them. Complete with a comprehensive glossary, almost 100 tables in which language data and examples are clearly laid out, suggestions for further reading, discussion points, and a range of exercises, this text will be an essential toolkit for all those studying historical linguistics, language typology and the Indo-European languages for the first time.
The Iberians inhabited southern and eastern Spain between the Greek and Phoenician colonisation, beginning in the eighth century BC, and the Roman conquest. This was a period of significant changes in native Spanish societies, and the emergence of urbanism and the adoption of ideological symbols and technological innovations from the colonists created an important and unique Iron Age culture. In this 1998 book, Arturo Ruiz and Manuel Molinos offer the first synthesis of the period for more than thirty years, and cover a number of topics: ways in which material culture can help to explain cultural change, ethnicity, and ethnic conflict, and the decline of the Iberian world following the Punic Wars and Roman colonization. The result is a sophisticated, theoretically informed case study of cultural change within a specific complex society.
The internationally renowned Assyriologist and linguist I. M. Diakonoff has gathered the work of Soviet historians in this survey of the earliest history of the ancient Near East, Central Asia, India, and China. Diakonoff and his colleagues, nearly all working within the general Marxist historiographic tradition, offer a comprehensive, accessible synthesis of historical knowledge from the beginnings of agriculture through the advent of the Iron Age and the Greek colonization in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea areas. Besides discussing features of Soviet historical scholarship of the ancient world, the essays treat the history of early Mesopotamia and the course of Pharaonic Egyptian civilization and developments in ancient India and China from the Bronze Age into the first millennium B.C. Additional chapters are concerned with the early history of Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine, the Hittite civilization, the Creto-Mycenaean world, Homeric Greece, and the Phoenician and Greek colonization. This volume offers a unified perspective on early antiquity, focusing on the economic and social relations of production. Of immense value to specialists, the book will also appeal to general readers. I. M. Diakonoff is a senior research scholar of ancient history at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Leningrad Academy of Sciences. Philip L. Kohl is professor of anthropology at Wellesley College.
This succinct, accessible two-volume set covers all aspects of Celtic historical life, from prehistory to the present day. The study of Celtic history has a wide international appeal, but unfortunately many of the available books on the subject are out-of-date, narrowly specialized, or contain incorrect information. Online information on the Celts is similarly unreliable. This two-volume set provides a well-written, up-to-date, and densely informative reference on Celtic history that is ideal for high school or college-aged students as well as general readers. The Celts: History, Life, and Culture uses a cross-disciplinary approach to explore all facets of this ancient society. The book introduces the archaeology, art history, folklore, history, linguistics, literature, music, and mythology of the Celts and examines the global influence of their legacy. Written entirely by acknowledged experts, the content is accessible without being simplistic. Unlike other texts in the field, The Celts: History, Life, and Culture celebrates all of the cultures associated with Celtic languages at all periods, providing for a richer and more comprehensive examination of the topic.
“STIRLING HAS SURPASSED HIS PREVIOUS WORK,” raved Science Fiction Chronicle of his bestselling novel Island in the Sea of Time, and George R. R. Martin hailed it as “an utterly engaging account of what happens when the isle of Nantucket is whisked back into the Bronze Age.” Now, the adventure continues... In the years since the Event, the Republic of Nantucket has done its best to recreate the better ideas of the modern age. But the evils of its time resurface in the person of William Walker, renegade Coast Guard officer, who is busy building an empire for himself based on conquest by technology. When Walker reaches Greece and recruits several of their greater kinglets to his cause, the people of Nantucket have no choice. If they are to save the primitive world from being plunged into bloodshed on a twentieth-century scale, they must defeat Walker at his own game: war.
Mexico of five centuries ago was witness to one of the most momentous encounters between human societies, when a group of Spaniards led by Hernando Cortés joined forces with tens of thousands of Mesoamerican allies to topple the mighty Aztec Empire. It served as a template for the forging of much of Latin America and initiated the globalized world we inhabit today. The violent clash that culminated in the Aztec-Spanish war of 1519-21 and the new colonial order it created were millennia in the making, entwining the previously independent cultural developments of both sides of the Atlantic. Collision of Worlds provides a deep history of this encounter, one that considers temporal depth in the richly layered cultures of Mexico and Spain, from their prehistories to the urban and imperial societies they built in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Leading Mesoamerican archaeologist David Carballo offers a unique perspective on these fabled events with a focus on the physical world of places and things, their similarities and differences in trans-Atlantic perspective, and their interweaving in an encounter characterized by conquest and colonialism, but also resilience on the part of Native peoples. An engrossing and sweeping account, Collision of Worlds debunks long-held myths and contextualizes the deep roots and enduring consequences of the Aztec-Spanish conflict as never before.
