Dinner with King Tut - Žiurkikės

464 psl.

English kalba

Publikuota 2025, Little Brown & Company.

ISBN:: 978-0-316-49655-1

From “one of America’s smartest and most charming writers” (NPR), an archaeological romp through the entire history of humankind—and through all five senses—from tropical Polynesian islands to forbidding arctic ice floes, and everywhere in between. Whether it’s the mighty pyramids of Egypt or the majestic temples of Mexico, we have a good idea of what the past looked like. But what about our other senses: The tang of Roman fish sauce and the springy crust of Egyptian sourdough? The boom of medieval cannons and the clash of Viking swords? The frenzied plays of an Aztec ballgame...and the chilling reality that the losers might also lose their lives?

History often neglects the tastes, textures, sounds, and smells that were an intimate part of our ancestors’ lives, but a new generation of researchers is resurrecting those hidden details, pioneering an exciting new discipline called experimental archaeology. These are scientists gone rogue: …

From “one of America’s smartest and most charming writers” (NPR), an archaeological romp through the entire history of humankind—and through all five senses—from tropical Polynesian islands to forbidding arctic ice floes, and everywhere in between. Whether it’s the mighty pyramids of Egypt or the majestic temples of Mexico, we have a good idea of what the past looked like. But what about our other senses: The tang of Roman fish sauce and the springy crust of Egyptian sourdough? The boom of medieval cannons and the clash of Viking swords? The frenzied plays of an Aztec ballgame...and the chilling reality that the losers might also lose their lives?

History often neglects the tastes, textures, sounds, and smells that were an intimate part of our ancestors’ lives, but a new generation of researchers is resurrecting those hidden details, pioneering an exciting new discipline called experimental archaeology. These are scientists gone rogue: They make human mummies. They investigate the unsolved murders of ancient bog bodies. They carve primitive spears and go hunting, then knap their own obsidian blades to skin the game. They build perilous boats and plunge out onto the open sea—all in the name of experiencing history as it was, with all its dangers, disappointments, and unexpected delights.

Beloved author Sam Kean joins these experimental archaeologists on their adventures across the globe, from the Andes to the South Seas. He fires medieval catapults, tries his hand at ancient surgery and tattooing, builds Roman-style roads—and, in novelistic interludes, spins gripping tales about the lives of our ancestors with vivid imagination and his signature meticulous research.

Lively, offbeat, and filled with stunning revelations about our past, Dinner with King Tut sheds light on days long gone and the intrepid experts resurrecting them today, with startling, lifelike detail and more than a few laughs along the way.

2 leidimai

Soh Kam Yung apžvelgė autoriaus Sam Kean knygą Dinner with King Tut

A book that gives a look at how prehistoric and historic people may have lives

4 žvaigždutės

An interesting book that looks at the field of experimental archaeology, or the practice of trying to recreate how people may have lived based on the available archaeological evidence, along with some speculation (necessary, since not everything ancient people did was preserved). The author is not satisfied with just observing such recreations, but also takes parts in them, leading to some interesting insights (and injuries). The author also includes fictional accounts of people living in those periods, giving readers a glimpse into how such people lived (and died). He also counters the various myths that have grown-up about the why of living of several prehistoric and historic peoples.

The author starts in the prehistoric era in Africa, with hunter-gathering people, showing how they created stone tools by knapping, and the long-distance hunting of an antelope that gets diverted into the stealing of ostrich eggs. Next, a South American attempt …

An interesting book that looks at the field of experimental archaeology, or the practice of trying to recreate how people may have lived based on the available archaeological evidence, along with some speculation (necessary, since not everything ancient people did was preserved). The author is not satisfied with just observing such recreations, but also takes parts in them, leading to some interesting insights (and injuries). The author also includes fictional accounts of people living in those periods, giving readers a glimpse into how such people lived (and died). He also counters the various myths that have grown-up about the why of living of several prehistoric and historic peoples.

The author starts in the prehistoric era in Africa, with hunter-gathering people, showing how they created stone tools by knapping, and the long-distance hunting of an antelope that gets diverted into the stealing of ostrich eggs. Next, a South American attempt to hunt game (including the formidable giant sloth) using atlatls is featured. Here, the author presents evidence that not all hunters were male, for females are also skilful at using the atlatl for hunting.

Life in Çatalhöyük, the first large inhabited area in Turkey, is then given. At the time, it was a very egalitarian life, with people considered equals and required to share. So the fictional story of a sister having to fight for the burial of a brother who was very possessive shows the conflicts such a lifestyle can have. Here, the author presents the long and arduous process of tanning hides into leather, which also involves using the brains of animals to tan their hides.

Moving on to Egypt, the author looks at the lives of people involved in building the pyramids and the efforts needed to organise and feed them. Bread and beer play a major part, as well the process of mummification. A major leap brings us to Polynesia and the lives of the people who navigate the open oceans, who look, and feel, for clues that land may be nearby.

The author then moves to Rome. Presenting the fictional lives of people living in Pompeii just before the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, he shows the life of a slave in a household of a Roman woman hoping to move up the social ladder. This would involve a dinner party, finery, glamorous hair and some intrigue.

In California, the fictional life of a Native American who seeks revenge on a rival shows how acorns, tattoos, weapons and the use of toxins are involved in their rituals and lives. Warfare does not let up, as the author next presents a Viking siege of a European monastery, a story that involves digging up bodies in bogs and the use of trepenation (surgery on skulls) as a way to treat head injuries.

Moving north, the author samples Inupiat food and the way they live, hunting for seals (and using their skins as a bag) and the way they cook food when there is little heating material. China is the next destination, where he looks at the lives of eunuchs, the use of weapons like the trebuchet, and the role that alchemy played in the lives of people.

Finally, the author looks at the Aztecs in Mexico, corn as their staple food, the role of human sacrifice in their lives and the impact of Spanish cannons had on the Aztecs.