Al-Ahram Weekly | Books supplement | New guide for the virtual traveller

In this age of mass tourism and of modern technology, armchair travel may seem rather out of date. Gone are the days when only the privileged few could afford the time or had the means to visit exotic places, and when the less privileged had to be content merely with reading about them. Today more people have more opportunities to travel, prices have come down, and even the most distant of destinations is only a few hours away. Under these circumstances, it might be thought that the 'armchair traveller' was a thing of the past, or at least was an endangered species. However books of the quality of The Splendours of Archaeology remind one that the métier is far from extinct. For the book can take the reader to places that he might otherwise not have known existed, or can give an entirely new perspective on those that he did.

This weighty publication of 352 glossy pages published by the American University in Cairo Press offers an insight into some of the most fascinating archaeological sites in the world. The book provides an up-to-date description of the major centres of development of the world's most important civilizations, guiding the reader from the daily routines of life in ancient Rome to religious ceremonies held at the foot of the Mayan Pyramids in Tikal, and from the extravagance of the Khmer court at Angkor Thom, to the ancient city of Babylon on the Euphrates. The book's range is enormous and, illustrated with an exceptional collection of photographs and dozens of easy-to-read maps, each of its pages is a visual delight. Images and plans are well co-ordinated with the text, and their captions are comprehensive and informative.

Among the many fine photographs the book contains are detailed pictures of the prehistoric cave drawings at Lascaux in France, of the Roman Emperor Hadrian's villa in Italy, of the cool corridors of the funerary temple of Khasne in the ancient city of Petra in Jordan and of the top of the Masada in Israel. The quality of the reproductions are such that one can enjoy the sensation of visiting these sites without the hassle of reaching them. Space is also found for sites in India, Burma, Cambodia, China, Peru and Bolivia, and these are described in detail, with sections of text explaining the archaeological excavations carried out, the main finds, and aspects of the history of the civilizations to which they bear witness.

Perhaps the best way of evaluating the book's content is to examine in detail the account given of those places with which one is most familiar. In my case these are sites in Egypt, Palmyra, Rome and Athens and, in reading the account given of these and examining the accompanying photographs and plans, I was very favourably impressed. Not only are the photographs original and the page layout in general very well done (the book was both designed and printed in Italy), but the accompanying texts are written by scholars in the field. Sometimes the English translation of these scholars' contributions was not as polished as one might have wished, but given the quality of the texts this might be overlooked. In particular, I was delighted to discover new angles on familiar sites, many aerial views, and some close-ups of reliefs not otherwise easily accessible to the ordinary tourist. Luxor, for example, was presented from the perspective of the occupants of a balloon floating over the necropolis (which I have certainly never done), while the upturned palms of Idu in his tomb at Giza are reproduced with great clarity and immediacy.

This is perhaps the book's greatest virtue, since the quality of the photographs draws the reader into the ancient cultures that the text describes, and makes for many hours of fascinating reading. The reproductions of parts of the Parthenon frieze carved by the sculptor Phydia of horsemen launching themselves into a race, of the "ineffable face of Buddha Avalokittikvara" still locked in the tangled vegetation that surrounded it when it was discovered by a group of French botanists in 1860 at Angkor in present-day Cambodia, or of the effigies of leading members of the most important families of Easter Island might particularly be mentioned.

The Splendours of Archaeology allows the reader to travel to Burma and stand beside a priest photographed before a huge statue in an 11th-century temple, to see details of a gold and lapis lazuli bull's head on a harp that once belonged to Princess Shub-Ad in Ancient Mesopotamia and to climb up to the Lost City of Macchu Picchu in Peru and then climb up the stairs of the different terraces to the high altar, which is unique in the Inca world. The book is large and expensive, but it contains a wealth of possible experience. Reading it may not turn out actually to be better than visiting the monuments in question, but it will provide much illuminating information and provoke many questions while providing outstanding visual pleasure.

Reviewed by Jill Kamil

		Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 October 1999 Issue No. 451
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875