The Seventy Great Mysteries of the Ancient World
Subtitle: Unlocking the Secrets of Past Civilizations
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Published: October 2001
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9780500510506
Subjects: Controversial Knowledge & Mysteries; World history: BCE to c 500 CE; BCE to c 500 CE; History; Ancient Archaeology; Social Science; History - General History; To 1500; Sociology; Ancient World; Ancient - General; Antiquities; Archaeology; Civilization, Ancient; Curiosities and wonders
Table of contents: title: Myths & legends: hidden truths? Introduction -- The Garden of Eden -- The Biblical Flood & Noah's Ark -- Moses & the Exodus: myth or reality? -- The lost cities of Sodom & Gomorrah -- Atlantis: fact or fiction? -- The Trojan War -- Theseus & the Minotaur -- Jason & the Argonauts -- The ten lost tribes of Israel -- The quest for the Ark of the Covenant -- The Star of Bethlehem -- King Arthur & the Holy Grail -- 	The Turin Shroud -- Maya myth: will the world end in 2012? -- Aztlan & the myth of the Aztec migration -- Memories of the dreamtime -- Mysteries of the Stone Age. Introduction -- The puzzle of human origins -- How did language evolve? -- What happened to the Neanderthals? -- The enigma of paleolithic cave art -- Who were the first Australians? -- The first Americans & Kennewick Man -- What wiped out the big game animals? -- How did farming begin? -- The mysteries of rock art -- The meaning of the megaliths -- Was there a mother goddess cult? -- The iceman: shepherd or shaman? -- How did they build Stonehenge? -- Where did the Indo-Europeans come from? -- Ancient civilizations. Introduction -- Were the ancient Egyptians black Africans? -- How did they erect pyramids & obelisks? -- The riddle of the Sphinx -- Where was the Land of Punt? -- Was Tutankhamun murdered? -- The Tarim Mummies: who were they? -- Were the Olmecs African? -- Why did the Carthaginians sacrifice children? -- Ancient oracles: prophets or profiteers? -- Who were the Celts? -- Bog bodies: murder victims or sacrifices? -- The lost legions of Rome -- The mysteries of Mithraism -- Lost City of the Maya: the hunt for Site Q -- The mystery of the Nazca Lines -- Who built Tiwanaku? -- Why did the Incas sacrifice children? -- How did the Polynesians find their homeland? -- Statues & survival on Easter Island -- Tombs & lost treasures. Introduction -- The Puzzle of Tomb -- The lost tomb of Alexander the Great -- The tomb of China's first emperor -- The hidden treasure of the Dead Sea -- The Tomb of Christ -- Ancient & undeciphered scripts. Introduction -- The origins of writing -- The Proto-Elamite script -- The Indus script -- Linear A & the Phaistos Disc -- The origins of the alphabet -- The Etruscan alphabet -- The Meroitic script -- The Zapotec & Isthmian scripts -- Runes & Pictish symbol stones -- Rongorongo -- The fall of civilizations. Introduction -- The Thera eruption & the fall of the Minoans -- The fall of Rome -- El Ninos & the collapse of Moche civilization -- Why did Maya civilization collapse? -- What happened to the Anasazi? -- Catastrophic impacts from outer space?