Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur


Book Description

This stunning catalogue includes color photographs of more than 230 objects, excavated in the 1930s by renowned British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley, from the third-millennium-B.C. Sumerian city of Ur. Learn the fascinating story of the excavation and preservation of these magnificent artifacts. Many of the objects are published in color and fully described for the first time—jewelry of gold and semiprecious stones, engraved seal stones, spectacular gold and lapis lazuli statuettes and musical instruments; and vessels of gold, silver, and alabaster. Curator Richard Zettler sets the stage with a history of Ur in the third millennium and the details of the actual excavations. Art historians Donald Hansen and Holly Pittman discuss the historical importance and significance of the many motifs on the most spectacular finds from the tombs.




Richard III


Book Description

Richard III: villain or hero? He was only on the throne for just over two years, yet Richard is probably the most controversial monarch in British history: to some a hunchbacked schemer, usurper and murderer of the 'princes in the Tower', to others a very capable and much maligned ruler. Now you can judge for yourself. Surviving documents from his reign, including letters in Richard's own hand and extracts from official papers, are reproduced here from the 500-year-old originals. Each key document is beautifully reproduced in a double-page spread which also includes an extended contextualising caption and a modern transcription where necessary. The original sources are woven together by a brief narrative history of the reign, fully illustrated in colour with portraits, photographs and other material from the archives. Featured documents include: * Letter from Richard to his mother, 1484 * Richard's official justification for taking the throne, 1484 proclamation against Henry Tudor, 1485 * Richard's letter to the Lord Chancellor requesting the Great Seal 1483




Treasures of the Royal British Columbia Museum and Archives


Book Description

Foreword / Steven Point -- Introduction / Jack Lohman & Coralee Oakes -- Travelling by Carr : new ways of reaching the interior / Jack Lohman -- Living cultures : from artifacts to partnerships / Martha Black -- Living landscapes : Super natural British Columbia / Richard J. Hebda -- Where we've been and who we are : the archaeology collections / Grant Keddie -- A treasure trove hidden in plain view : the BC Archives / Gary Mitchell -- Notes -- About the authors.




Treasures of Queen Elizabeth


Book Description

Includes inserts (pictures, document facsimiles, etc.).




Treasures from the Royal Archives


Book Description

The treasures discussed and illustrated here range from the records of affairs of state to letters, diaries, and domestic jottings. Here are the Account Books of Elizabeth I, the bill for a herald's uniform of 1717, the deeds to Sandringham House of 1545. Here is the list of Jacobite prisoners taken at the Battle of Culloden, President Lincoln commiserating with Queen Victoria on the death of Prince Albert, or the testimony of a witness in the trial of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. Here are letters from Bonnie Prince Charlie, William Pitt, Disraeli and Gladstone; and from the young William IV to-be, as prince, describing the New York of 1781 to his father, George III. There are documents recording the creation of the Victoria Cross medal, a terrifyingly vivid first-hand description of the battle of Rorke's Drift; and a gentlemanly skirmish between Winston Churchill and King George VI, over the former's wish to be present on board ship at D-Day in 1944. "




Richard II and the English Royal Treasure


Book Description

The remarkable treasure of gold and silver from England and France which Richard II had amassed by the end of his reign in 1399 is fully revealed for the first time in this richly illustrated book. The author explores the nature of the objects themselves, their provenance and later fate, and examines the crucial role the treasure played in diplomacy and in financing the Hundred Years War, especially at the time of Agincourt. --




Treasures in Trusted Hands


Book Description

This pioneering study charts the one-way traffic of cultural and historical objects during five centuries of European colonialism. Former colonies consider this as a historical injustice that has not been undone.




The Royal City of Susa


Book Description

A rich production followed of objects for daily use, ritual, and luxury living, finely carved in various materials or fashioned of clay. Monumental sculpture was made in stone or bronze, and dramatic friezes were composed of brilliantly glazed bricks. Among the discoveries are tiny, intricately carved cylinder seals and splendid jewelry. Clay balls marked with symbols offer fascinating testimony to the very beginnings of writing; clay tablets from later periods bearing inscriptions in cuneiform record political history, literature, business transactions, and mathematical calculations. A very important group of finds from Susa is made up of objects brought back as booty from conquests in Mesopotamia. These works, many of them the royal monuments of Akkadian and Babylonian monarchs - for instance, the great stele of Naram-Sin - are among the best known of all objects from the ancient Near East.




Treasures of the British Library


Book Description

In this highly-illustrated account, Nicolas Barker reveals the history of the British Library's treasure house of books and manuscripts. The Library's holdings cover collections spanning almost three millennia, from the establishment of the British Museum, which brought together the libraries of Sir Hans Sloane, Sir Robert Cotton and Robert Harley, first Earl of Oxford, to the foundation of the British Library in 1973 and to some outstanding acquisitions of the present day.




The Royal Baby Book


Book Description

From baby's first shoes, embroidered with tiny crowns, to golden rattles and miniver-trimmed short coats, this new book, the latest in Royal Collection Trust's best-selling series of Souvenir Albums, tells the story of eight royal babies, from Queen Victoria to the new prince. Using a wealth of previously unpublished items and documents from the Royal Collection and Royal Archives, it details the lives of seven of these royal babies from infancy and babyhood to first steps, and on to first days at school. Here are the dolls and teddy-bears, the prams and cots and tricycles, the lost teeth and locks of hair that all parents know and treasure, together with the little notes in childish scrawl, the family photographs, and the first dainty sets of 'best clothes'. And where else could such a celebration of baby- and childhood end, but with a chapter devoted to our new Prince, to bring this happy history up to the present day.