Travel In The Ancient World

The only book of its kind in any language, Travel in the Ancient World offers a lively, comprehensive history of ancient travel, from the first Egyptian voyages recorded in Old Kingdom inscriptions through Greek and Roman times to the Christian pilgrimages of the fourth and sixth centuries. Rich in anecdote and colorful detail, it now returns to print in paperback with a new preface by the author.

Travel and Religion in Antiquity considers the importance of issues relating to travel for our understanding of religious and cultural life among Jews, Christians, and others in the ancient world, particularly during the Hellenistic and Roman eras. The volume is organized around five overlapping areas where religion and travel intersect: travel related to honouring deities, including travel to festivals, oracles, and healing sanctuaries; travel to communicate the efficacy of a god or the superiority of a way of life, including the diffusion of cults or movements; travel to explore and encounter foreign peoples or cultures, including descriptions of these cultures in ancient ethnographic materials; migration; and travel to engage in an occupation or vocation. With interdisciplinary contributions that cover a range of literary, epigraphic, and archeological materials, the volume sheds light on the importance of movement in connection with religious life among Greeks, Romans, Nabateans, and others, including Judeans and followers of Jesus.

Take a boat trip down ancient Egypt's crocodile-infested Nile river or a chariot ride through ancient Rome, circa. a.d. 128, and don't forget to make the customary sacrifice at the altar outside the door before entering the Parthenon in ancient Greece. And, above all, try to avoid becoming a human sacrifice yourself if you dare visit the Aztec temple in Tenochtitlan!Written and organized in the style of a travel guide, this book takes the reader on an amazing tour of the greatest empires of the past and explores what it was really like to be a citizen of these intriguing civilizations. Packed full of useful information for would-be tourists as well as quirky sightseers' tips, this is a stimulating way for children to learn about history.

THE DEADLIEST PREDATORS OF THREE SEPARATE EONS Captain Andy Blacklock was overseeing the change of shifts at the state of Illinois' maximum-security prison when the world outside was suddenly ripped. They thought it was an earthquake until they found that the Mississippi River had disappeared, along with all signs of civilization. Then the sun came up¾in the wrong direction. And a dinosaur came by and scratched its hide against the wall of the prison ... Something had thrown the prison back in time millions of years. And they were not alone. Other humans from periods centuries, even millennia, apart had also been dropped into the same time. Including a band of murderous conquistadores. But the prison had its own large population of murderers. They couldn't be turned loose, but what else could be done with them. Death walked outside the walls, human savagery was planning to break loose inside, and Stephens and the other men and women of the prison's staff were trapped in the middle. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management).

"Written by leading scholars in the field, this collection analyses the notion of travel writing as a genre, while tracing significant examples of Mediterranean travel writing that return us to Ancient Greece, to Medieval pilgrimages, to Venetians diplomatic missions, to an Egyptian's account of Paris in the nineteenth century, to French artistic journeys in North Africa and to contemporary narratives of privileged resettlement, death and dislocation."

This volume sheds new light on the significance and meaning of material culture for the study of pilgrimage in the ancient world, focusing in particular on Classical and Hellenistic Greece, the Roman Empire and Late Antiquity. It thus discusses how archaeological evidence can be used to advance our understanding of ancient pilgrimage and ritual experience. The volume brings together a group of scholars who explore some of the rich archaeological evidence for sacred travel and movement, such as the material footprint of different activities undertaken by pilgrims, the spatial organization of sanctuaries and the wider catchment of pilgrimage sites, as well as the relationship between architecture, art and ritual. Contributions also tackle both methodological and theoretical issues related to the study of pilgrimage, sacred travel and other types of movement to, from and within sanctuaries through case studies stretching from the first millennium BC to the early medieval period.

Now available in paperback, Omerod's classic Piracy in the Ancient World brings the treachery of the ancient high seas alive. Drawing on the works of Homer and Thucydides and the historical records that have survived from ancient Greece and Rome, Ormerod reconstructs the dangers of coastal living and seafaring and the attempts to protect against the threat of invasion from the seas. Seaborne brigands were greatly feared in the ancient world. Pirates not only preyed on merchant ships and fishing craft in the Mediterranean but also wreaked havoc on coastal townstaking men, women, and children to ransom or sell as slaves; raiding treasures; and exacting tribute from fearful town leaders. Responding to the threat of piracy, the Greeks established their primary cities inland for protection and even in their North African and Sicilian outposts they left coastal land uncultivated. Mariners feared pirate ships around every promontory and sought protection from the navies of such states as Rhodes and Crete. The Romans were beset in the time of their early Republic by "Tyrreanean" pirates based in the south of Italy and during the last years of the Empire by the Cilician pirates of Asia Minor. When one great pirate, Sextus Pompeiius, was finally suppressed, rather than being punished he was charged with ridding the seas of his former followers. His attempts failed. Now available in paperback, Ormerod's classic Piracy in the Ancient World brings the treachery of the ancient high seas alive. Drawing on the works of Homer and Thucydides and the historical records that have survived from ancient Greece and Rome, Ormerod reconstructs the dangers of coastal living and seafaring and the attempts to protect against the threat of invasion from the seas. He describes the general nature of early piracy, ancient navigation, and the pirate's routines and tactics.