Ancient Cities

Ancient Cities brings to life the physical world of ancient city dwellers by concentrating on evidence recovered by archaeological excavations from the Mediterranean basin and south-west Asia. It provides surveys of the cities of the ancient Near East, Egypt, and the Greek and Roman worlds, from an archaeological perspective, in their cultural and historical contexts. The urban form of the cities and the architecture and geography that created it are examined in detail. Attention is also paid to non-urban features such as religious sanctuaries and burial grounds, places and institutions that were a familiar part of the city dweller¿s experience. Objects or artefacts, which represented the essential furnishings of everyday life, are discussed and include pottery, sculpture, wall paintings, mosaics and coins. Ancient Cities is unusual in presenting this wide range of Old World cultures in such comprehensive detail, giving equal weight to the Preclassical and Classical periods, and in showing the links between these ancient cultures. User-friendly features include: use of clear and accessible language, assuming no previous background knowledge lavishly illustrated with nearly 300 line drawings, maps and photos a companion website with extra images and material historical summaries, further reading arranged by topic, plus a consolidated bibliography and comprehensive index new to the second edition: a timeline clarifying periods of inhabitation, a glossary of historical terms, and a brief history of each city¿s excavations. In this second edition, Charles Gates has comprehensively revised and updated his original text. Readers and lecturers will be delighted to see a new chapter on Phoenician cities in the first millennium BC, and further development of the western Mediterranean and the Iron Age Near East. With even more comprehensive identification of the themes and a new final chapter, Ancient Cities will remain an essential textbook for students across a wide range of archaeology, ancient history, and classical studies courses at high-school and university level.