The romance of excavation

The Story of the Rosetta Stone—How it was found by the French and passed into possession of Great Britain—The puzzling picture writing of the ancient Egyptians which no one coul...

The Ruins of Egypt—Men who are using their eyes to bring back to us the glories of the past—Papyrus, the paper of olden times, and how it was made—Bits of pottery worth their we...

Shifting 70,000 tons of rubble to find the tomb of Tutankhamen—The dreadful monotony of digging in vain—A lucky decision which led to the discovery of Tutankhamen’s dazzling tre...

Signs which tell men where to dig—Egypt’s wonderful climate, which preserves things almost for ever—Why the Nile was worshipped—The annual floods and how they were watched by th...

Graves which make history—The great age of Egyptian civilization—Mud that tells a story—The first king of Egypt—The romance of the tombs—The Book of the Dead which contains some...

Wonders of the Pyramids—The mystery surrounding them and a simple explanation—How the Pyramids were built—Amazing accuracy of architects who lived 6000 years ago—The secret entr...

Thebes, the one-time capital of Egypt, then and now—Armies to transport stones—Handling the gigantic obelisks—Controlling the floods thousands of years ago—An endless battle of...

A despised statue that realised £10,000—Some American discoveries—Finding treasure valued at £3,000,000—How chance led Professor Flinders Petrie to a long-lost city—His weird ad...

The mystery of cuneiform writing—A young English soldier who solved an age-old puzzle—Rawlinson’s work on the Rock at Behistun—Perched on the verge of a precipice—His thrilling...

Hills which are buried cities—Romance of Sir Austin Henry Layard—The young English lawyer who went into the desert and dug up Nineveh of old—The Arab who laughed at the men who...

How Layard, with £60, uncovered a lost civilization—A wild boar hunt which was not quite what it seemed—Finding the great winged bull—Deserts that were once the Garden of Eden—H...

A mussel shell which proved that scientists were wrong—The forerunner of modern Manchester in the heart of ancient Mesopotamia—Finding the treasure of the Moon God at Ur—The Tow...

Discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann—His amazing life—The grocer’s boy who wept over Homer, starved himself to buy books, and eventually made a fortune to carry out his boyi...

Schliemann vindicated and honoured—His 100,000 relics from Troy—The Greek sculpture of Apollo—Glories of ancient Greece—When Phidias, the world’s greatest sculptor, carved the m...

Did ancient Crete dominate the world like modern Britain?—The Mediterranean civilization—Brilliant discoveries of Sir Arthur Evans—The Throne Room at Knossos—Some Cretan cameos—...

A scientist stood in the British Museum gazing at a piece of rock. Many people passed to and fro, but never one halted to see what held his attention, never one save a little bo...

A little over a century ago the past of Egypt was concealed from living eyes. The Pyramids still stood four-square to the sandstorms of the desert as they had stood for ages, th...

When Professor Flinders Petrie first set foot in Egypt he was a young man, only twenty-seven years of age. The older men of other nations who had spent their lives delving in th...

The men who are digging history out of the earth with pick and shovel rely upon something more than chance to obtain their results. The general idea of a man casually strolling...

Gradually the romance of ancient Egypt is being revealed by the graves of those who died in remote times, yet to read the romance at first hand requires exceptional ability that...

Since the dawn of history the Pyramids have been considered one of the wonders of the earth. They are unique. There is nothing to compare with them in any other land. Strangers...

Thebes at its zenith was one of the glories of the old world, with some of the most marvellous temples ever imagined by the mind of man or executed by human hand. The ancient ca...

The romance of ancient Egypt is not nearly told. Hundreds of volumes have been written about it; hundreds more are still to write. Day by day something is being turned up under...

Countless caravans wended their way from the parched plains of Mesopotamia eastwards over the Persian border, past Kermanshah, winding along the road that skirts the range of hi...

To within a few years of the middle of the nineteenth century, Babylon and Assyria were only names. People read about them in the Bible, but no visible trace remained. They had...

Layard, disappointed that his own countrymen were so little interested in his proposals, was impelled by the success of Botta to make a strong effort to begin the work he was lo...

Since Layard dug up the vanished cities of Nineveh and Calah on the banks of the Tigris three-quarters of a century ago, many gifted men have followed in his footsteps, and wiel...

Romantic as are the Egyptian discoveries, amazing as the work of Layard remains, the discovery of Troy ranks as the most amazing and romantic of all. The excavation of Troy is,...

Science, which began by doubting, finished by honouring Schliemann for his remarkable discoveries. Multitudes had gazed on the desolate Hill of Hissarlik, the Turks had long qua...

On the map of the world, Great Britain is small. That men should go forth from this little island and win their way in so many distant lands, that this island people should wiel...