Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World

by Philip Matyszak

Overview

A chronicle of forty forgotten ancient civilizations which highlights the important contributions that each has made to modern society.

The ancient world of the Mediterranean and the Near East saw the birth and collapse of great civilizations. While several of these are well known, for all those that have been recorded, many have been unjustly forgotten. Our history is overflowing with different cultures that have all evolved over time, sometimes dissolving or reforming, though ultimately shaping the way we continue to live. But for every culture that has been remembered, what have we forgotten?

This thorough guide explores those civilizations that have faded from the pages of our textbooks but played a significant role in the development of modern society. Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World covers the Hyksos to the Hephthalites and everyone in between, providing a unique overview of humanity’s history from approximately 3000 BCE–550 CE. A wide range of illustrated artifacts and artworks, as well as specially drawn maps, help to tell the stories of forty lost peoples and allow readers to take a direct look into the past. Each entry exposes a diverse culture, highlighting their important contributions and committing their achievements to paper.

Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World is an immersive, thought-provoking, and entertaining book for anyone interested in ancient history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780500052150
Publisher:	Thames & Hudson
Publication date:	08/18/2020
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Philip Matyszak has a doctorate in Roman history from St John's College, Oxford. He also teaches and prepares courses for the eLearning program at Cambridge University. He is the author of numerous books on the ancient world, including Lost Cities of the Ancient World, The Greek and Roman Myths: A Guide to the Classical Stories, and Ancient Magic: A Practitioner's Guide to the Supernatural in Greece and Rome, all published by Thames & Hudson.

Editorial Reviews

2020-05-10
Lightly worn but rich scholarship highlights this reader-friendly survey of the ancient past.

We know the winners of history: the Romans, the Golden Horde, Alexander the Great. However, as Matyszak asks at the outset of this good-natured exploration of long-bygone times, “what do we know of the Bactrians, apart from their two-humped camels? Or of the Samaritans, other than that one of them was good?” That’s a pointed question, for, as he goes on to note, historians and archaeologists are recasting our understanding of early civilizations, adjusting chronologies and interpretations with each new discovery. A trustworthy general pattern emerges, however, and that is that one group conquers another group and grows in power until being conquered by a still more powerful neighbor. Sargon the Great, for instance, ruled Mesopotamian tribes and made of them “rulers of an empire that stretched from the headwaters of the Euphrates to the Persian Gulf,” an empire that would fall under the control of Amorites, people whom the Akkadians considered inferior. (We know one of them, Ammurapi, by his Akkadian name Hammurabi.) The Canaanites along the Mediterranean coast were variously Hebrews, Philistines, and Phoenicians, while the so-called lost tribes of Israel may never turn up, though Matyszak gamely ventures that, given the patterns of other historical migrations, their descendants may be scattered throughout the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East. The same holds for a people known to the Egyptians as the Shekelesh, the Sicels, who moved on to southern Italy and then conquered—without much violence, it appears—the next-door island that bears their name, Sicily. Each entry for peoples ranging in time from deep prehistory to the early Middle Ages includes handsome illustrations and maps, and the author’s text is accessible, sometimes playful, and never dumbed down.

Just the thing for initiates into the early history of Eurasia and North Africa. (maps and illustrations)

Kirkus Reviews