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Champollion's decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics on the Obelisk of Philae and then on the Rosetta Stone allowed archaeologists to begin reading the history written on countless temples, tombs and artifacts throughout Egypt. It was Champollion's translation of these ancient Egyptian texts that gave rise to Egyptology.
Then, Ceram takes on a couple of individuals that may be more familiar to most people. Ceram's account of Howard Carter and his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, finding and eventually opening Tutankhamun's tomb draws you right into the events as Carter entered the young king's final resting place. "The questions that now troubled everyone's mind was this: had the robbers had time to force their way into the shrine? Had they got at the mummy and injured it? Carter discovered that the folding doors at the eastern end of the shrine were bolted, but not sealed. With trembling hands, he drew back the bolts and came upon another pair of folding doors, also bolted, and sealed. These doors gave ingress to a second shrine built within the first." ". . .They closed the shrine door 'as silently as possible'. They had noticed the linen pall, bespangled and brown with age, drooping above the shrine. 'The pall made us realize that we were in the presence of a dead king of past ages.' For a moment, they felt like intruders." "From the middle of this room, facing the doorway, shone a golden shrine-shaped chest, and surrounding it, unattached, were four protecting goddesses, fashioned with such grace and naturalness, with so much compassion and pleading in their faces, that 'one felt it almost sacrilege to look at them. . . I am not ashamed to confess,' Carter says, 'that it brought a lump to my throat." Ceram's journey does not end there. He continues through the discovery of Nineveh and the decipherment of cuneiform writing. Readers will glimpse the Biblical Flood as George Smith uncovers the clay tablets that first recorded it; they will visit one of the Seven Wonders of the World as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are rediscovered and marvel at the lost empires of the Aztecs, Mayans and Toltecs. After reading this book, you will find yourself not only informed, but perhaps more than a little inspired as well. Ceram's accounts of events may be sensational to some and the individuals he portrays as heroes were often not the cream of humanity's crop, however, it was through their efforts and enthusiasm that some of the world's greatest archaeological discoveries were made.
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