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7 books match the query 'Treasures'

cover of Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece

Ancient Thrace and the Classical World

Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece

Jeffrey Spier

J. Paul Getty Trust, The, 2024

A captivating examination of the profound impact Thracian art and culture had on the Greeks and the entire northern Aegean region.

The Thracians—a collection of tribal peoples who inhabited territories north of ancient Greece, an area that comprises present-day Bulgaria, much of Romania, and parts of Greece and Turkey—were renowned for their skill as warriors and horsemen, as well as for their wealth in precious metals. Thracians left few written records, and knowledge of their history and customs has long been dependent on brief accounts from ancient Greek authors. They appeared in Greek myth as formidable adversaries in the Trojan War, cruel kings, and followers of the ecstatic god Dionysos. Spectacular archaeological discoveries made in Thracian lands during modern times, however, have provided firsthand evidence of this remarkable culture, illuminating Thrace’s interactions with Greece, Persia, and Rome.

Ancient Thrace and the Classical World reproduces more than two hundred glorious objects dating from the end of the Bronze Age, around 1200 BC, to the end of the first century AD, when Thrace became part of the Roman Empire. Experts explore topics such as Thracian royal tombs, the Greek colonization of the Black Sea coast, Thracian religion, and more, placing Thracian culture in a broader historical context that highlights its complex relationships with the surrounding region.

This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa from November 6, 2024, to March 3, 2025.
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cover of Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia

Foreign Devils on the Silk Road

The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia

Peter Hopkirk

University of Massachusetts Press, 1980

The Silk Road, which linked imperial Rome and distant China, was once the greatest thoroughfare on earth. Along it traveled precious cargoes of silk, gold and ivory, as well as revolutionary new ideas. Its oasis towns blossomed into thriving centers of Buddhist art and learning. In time it began to decline. The traffic slowed, the merchants left and finally its towns vanished beneath the desert sands to be forgotten for a thousand years; however, legends grew up of lost cities filled with treasures and guarded by demons. In the early years of the last century foreign explorers began to investigate these legends, and very soon an international race began for the art treasures of the Silk Road. Huge wall paintings, sculptures and priceless manuscripts were carried away, literally by the ton, and are today scattered through the museums of a dozen countries. Peter Hopkirk tells the story of the intrepid men who, at great personal risk, led these long-range archaeological raids, incurring the undying wrath of the Chinese.
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cover of Rare and Wonderful: Treasures from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Rare and Wonderful

Treasures from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Kate Diston and Zoë Simmons

Bodleian Library Publishing, 2018

Since its foundation in 1860, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History has become a key center for scientific study, its much-loved building an icon for visitors from around the world. The museum now holds more than seven million scientific specimens, including five million insects, half a million fossil specimens, and half a million zoological specimens. It also holds an extensive collection of archival material relating to important naturalists such as Charles Darwin, William Jones, and James Charles Dale.
            This lavishly illustrated book features highlights from the collections, ranging from David Livingstone’s tsetse fly specimens to Mary Anning’s ichthyosaur, and from crabs collected by Darwin during his voyage on the Beagle to the iconic Dodo, the only soft tissue specimen of the species in existence. Also featured are the first described dinosaur bones, found in a small Oxfordshire village, the Red Lady of Paviland (who was in fact a man who lived 29,000 years ago), and a meteorite from the planet Mars.
            Each item tells a unique story about natural history, the history of science, collecting, or the museum itself. Rare & Wonderful offers unique insight into the extraordinary wealth of information and fascinating tales that can be gleaned from these collections.
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cover of Tolkien: Treasures

Tolkien

Treasures

Catherine McIlwaine

Bodleian Library Publishing, 2018

This beautifully illustrated book showcases the highlights of the Tolkien archives held at the Bodleian Library. From J. R. R. Tolkien’s childhood in the Midlands and his experience of the First World War to his studies at school and university, from his exquisite illustrations for The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings to his intricate and beautiful maps showing the topography of Middle-earth, this stunning book is a perfect introduction to Tolkien’s life and works. Tolkien: Treasures sheds light on the extraordinary genius and imagination that brought us Middle-earth, with all its Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Ringwraiths, Wizards, and, of course, Hobbits.
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cover of Treasures from the Map Room: A Journey through the Bodleian Collections

Treasures from the Map Room

A Journey through the Bodleian Collections

Edited by Debbie Hall

Bodleian Library Publishing, 2016

The Bodleian Library is home to one of the world’s largest and oldest collections of maps, with atlases, maps, and books on cartography dating back to the fourteenth century, including many that are among the most rare and historically significant.

Treasures from the Map Room publishes seventy-five extraordinary examples from this collection, housed in the Map Room at the newly renovated Weston Library. The maps reproduced in Treasures range from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century. Among them are the fourteenth-century Gough Map, the earliest road map of Great Britain that achieved a remarkable level of accuracy and detail for its time; fifteenth-century portolan charts intended for maritime navigation; the Selden Map of China, the earliest Chinese map to show shipping routes; and an important early map from the medieval Islamic Book of Curiosities. The book also includes a great many recent examples, including J. R. R. Tolkien’s map of Middle Earth and C. S. Lewis’s map of Narnia. Debbie Hall takes readers back in time to uncover the fascinating story of each treasure, from a map plotting outbreaks of cholera to a jigsaw map of India from the 1850s and silk escape maps carried by pilots flying missions over occupied Europe during World War II.

With lavish full-color photography and descriptions of each map’s provenance, purpose, and creation, Treasures from the Map Room is a beautiful and informative catalog of this remarkable collection.
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cover of Treasures of Herat: Two Manuscripts of the Khamsah of Nizami in the British Library

Treasures of Herat

Two Manuscripts of the Khamsah of Nizami in the British Library

Barbara Brend

Gingko, 2021

An illustrated reference book for students and scholars of Persian art, poetry, and literature.

With this book, Barbara Brend provides thorough consideration of two celebrated Persian manuscripts housed in the British Library. These two copies of the Khamsah (Quintet) a set of five narrative poems by twelfth-century poet Nizami, a master of allegorical poetry in Persian literature, were produced in Herat in the fifteenth century, one of the greatest periods of Persian painting. Although well known, the manuscripts have never before been written about in relation to each other. Brend tells the story of each poem and the painting that illustrates it, and she formally analyzes the images, placing them in their historical and artistic context.
 
The images from both highly prized manuscripts are beautifully reproduced in color, and the ownership history of one of the manuscripts—recorded in the form of seal impressions and inscriptions— is also included. Ursula Sims-Williams provides a translation and commentary of these important marks of ownership which identify the Mughal rulers Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb, among many others.
 
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cover of Treasures of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library

Treasures of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library

Edited by Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein

Southern Illinois University Press, 2014

Illinois State Historical Society Superior Achievement Award 2015

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois, houses a trove of invaluable historical resources concerning all aspects of the Prairie State’s past. Treasures of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library commemorates the institution’s 125-year history, as well as its contributions to scholarship and education by highlighting a selection of eighty-five treasures from among more than twelve million items in the library’s collections.

After opening with a historical overview and extensive chronology of the Library, the volume organizes the treasures by various topics, including items that illustrate various locations and materials relating to business, the mid-nineteenth century and the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the oldest items, unusual treasures, ethnicity, and art. From the Gettysburg Address, Abraham and Mary Lincoln’s letters, and Governor Dan Walker’s boots to a Deering Harvester Company catalog, WPA publications, and an Adlai Stevenson I campaign hat, each entry includes a thorough description of the item, one or more images, and a discussion of its history and how the library acquired it, if known. Other treasures include the Thomas Yates General Store daybook, Dubin Pullman car materials, Civil War newspapers, a Lincoln coffin photograph, the Mary Lincoln insanity verdict, the Directory of Sangamon County’s Colored Citizens, andLincoln’s stovepipe hat.

To highlight the academic importance of the Library, nineteen researchers share how study in the Library’s collections proved essential to their projects. Although these treasures only scrape the surface of the vast holdings of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, together they epitomize the rich, varied, and sometimes quirky resources available to both serious scholars and curious tourists alike at this valuable cultural institution.

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