This beautifully photographed book catalogs the collection of nearly five hundred Alutiiq cultural items held by the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, or the Kunstkamera, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Gathered between 1780 and 1867, many of the artifacts are composed of fur, feathers, gut, hair, and other delicate materials, which prevent their transport for display or study.

Before Writing gives a new perspective on the evolution of communication. It points out that when writing began in Mesopotamia it was not, as previously thought, a sudden and spontaneous invention. Instead, it was the outgrowth of many thousands of years' worth of experience at manipulating symbols.

In Volume I: From Counting to Cuneiform, Denise Schmandt-Besserat describes how in about 8000 B.C., coinciding with the rise of agriculture, a system of counters, or tokens, appeared in the Near East. These tokens—small, geometrically shaped objects made of clay—represented various units of goods and were used to count and account for them. The token system was a breakthrough in data processing and communication that ultimately led to the invention of writing about 3100 B.C. Through a study of archaeological and epigraphic evidence, Schmandt-Besserat traces how the Sumerian cuneiform script, the first writing system, emerged from a counting device.

In Volume II: A Catalog of Near Eastern Tokens, Schmandt-Besserat presents the primary data on which she bases her theories. These data consist of several thousand tokens, catalogued by country, archaeological site, and token types and subtypes. The information also includes the chronology, stratigraphy, museum ownership, accession or field number, references to previous publications, material, and size of the artifacts. Line drawings and photographs illustrate the various token types.

This volume features photographic reproductions of 166 Jewish ceremonial objects including wine cups; beakers; Sabbath lamps; candlesticks; spice boxes; Hanukkah lamps; Torah pointers; crowns, shields, and finials; plates for the Passover Seder and other occasions; charity boxes; Esther scrolls; containers for the etrog fruit used on Sukkot; marriage rings; amulets; and others.

Association of American University Presses Book Jacket Award, 1977 "As a key to Philadelphia's historic environment, this will become a standard work." --Museum News Today, William Penn's town is the living history of 300 years of architecture told in outstanding examples of Colonial, Federal, Italianate, and other early styles, and in the twentieth-century innovations of LeCorbusier, Kahn, and Wright. This new paperback edition updates the Historic American Buildings Survey collection, with new information on buildings lost through fire or demolition, or altered to restore the original architecture. Organized by the traditional sections of the city, the entries include extensive physical descriptions of the structures, analyses of architecturally notable features, dates of construction, alteration, or demolition, and a new street index. The book contains more than 100 drawings, photos, and maps from the HABS collection. "[F]rom Colonial, Federal and Italiante styles to the 20th-century innovation of LeCorbusier, Kahn, and Wright." --Philadelphia Inquirer "A cause for celebration. The editor's introductions set each part of the city into understandable units. The book is a clearly told story of success and failure in historic preservation." --J.E. Mooney, Director, Historical Society of Pennsylvania "A lovely portrait of Philadelphia's rich history of buildings." --The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography

The facsimiles of Yiddish documents and title pages reproduced in this volume, their captions, and the accompanying introductory essays are a succinct introduction to Yiddish culture. They cover religion, education and daily life, politics, Yiddish literature, history, and scholarship, Yiddish theater, and the Yiddish press, as reflected in materials printed over the last 400 years.