The Making of the Middle Sea

The Mediterranean has been for millennia one of the global cockpits of human endeavour. World-class interpretations exist of its Classical and subsequent history, but there has been remarkably little holistic exploration of how its societies, culture and economies first came into being, despite the fact that almost all the fundamental developments originated well before 500 bc. This book is the first full, interpretive synthesis for a generation on the rise of the Mediterranean world from its beginning, before the emergence of our own species, up to the threshold of Classical times. Extensively illustrated and ranging across disciplines, subject matter and chronology from early humans and the origins of farming and metallurgy to the rise of civilizations Egyptian, Levantine, Hispanic, Minoan, Mycenaean, Phoenician, Etruscan, early Greek the book is a masterpiece of archaeological and historical writing.

A Look Inside: The Making of the Middle Sea [Click Images to Enlarge]

The rock of Gibraltar as it looks today and as it might have appeared during phases of lower sea level to the Neanderthals occupying large caverns along its base. Courtesy: Gibraltar Museum 2006.

Experimental travel in a hypothetical reed boat. Photograph by Catherine Perles. Courtesy: Hellenic Institute for the Preservation of Nautical Traditions.

The loose collection of roundhouses constituting the early Cypriot village of Shillourokambos, set in this reconstruction within a savannah-like landscape with semi-free-ranging yet carefully managed herds. Courtesy: Simple Past/ Marc Azéma.

A reconstruction of the Iceman on the move, including cold-weather grass cape, knapsack, bow and other equipment. Courtesy: Drazen Tomic (after Tracy Wellman). Early rock engraving of cattle being milked at Tiksatin, Libyan Sahara. Courtesy: David Mattingly An 18th-century AD engraving, easily recognizable as a record of an early 1st- millennium BC Sardinian bronze figurine, from the Caylus collection. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.