Unearthing Ancient Worlds

A royal treasure buried for 3,000 years … On November 4, 1922, a British archaeologist named Howard Carter unearthed a buried staircase in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. At the bottom of the staircase was a door bearing the name Tutankhamen. That door led Carter to rooms filled with gold treasures and ancient statues. And deep in the tomb lay the mummy of a king, covered in jewels and sealed in a golden coffin. Carter's discovery was the first time someone had found the undisturbed burial chamber of an Egyptian ruler. That King Tutankhamen-who began his reign about 1334 B.C.-had died very young of unknown causes made the discovery even more intriguing. Soon Tut's tomb became famous around the world. People marveled at the gold treasures, the beautiful wall paintings, and the mysterious mummy. They grew fascinated by Egyptian history and culture. By unearthing this treasure from an ancient world, Carter helped people understand what a great civilization ancient Egypt had been.

A dead emperor guarded by his army for 2,000 years… One day in 1974, a group of farmers in rural China found a life-size clay statue of a man's head buried deep in a field. When government archaeologists inspected the area, they discovered that beneath the ground were more than eight thousand life-size clay soldiers, each one with a unique face. In nearby chambers, they unearthed clay horses, carefully preserved swords, bronze statues, and other astonishing things. Where did these treasures come from? And why were they buried? Slowly the story revealed itself. It centered around Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China, who died in 210 B.C. For forty years leading up to his death, thousands of artists from across China had sculpted an enormous city where he would be buried, guarded and protected by thousands of clay soldiers. This city remained hidden for over two thousand years. This important archaeological find offers amazing insight into the civilization of ancient China.

Mysterious ancient ruins, hidden deep in the jungle of southern Mexico… In May 1840, explorers John Stephens and Frederick Catherwood road their mules along a steep, muddy jungle path. They were hoping to find the ruins of an ancient, deserted site in Mexico they knew only from visitors' accounts. Through the trees, they spied the remains of a crumbling stone palace. Palenque! In the weeks they spent there, the men discovered intricately designed buildings and mysterious glyphs, or symbols. Who built this city? What did the glyphs mean? The questions remained largely unanswered until the 1950's, when Mexican archaeologist Alberto Ruz Lhuillier began his work at Palenque. By this time, he knew the ruins were those of the ancient Maya, who lived across Mexico and Central America more than one thousand years ago. After exhaustive work, Ruz and his crew made an amazing discovery-a tomb buried deep inside a pyramid. Through intensive study of Mayan glyphs, they learned the tomb was that of the great Mayan king Pakal, who died in 683 A.D. Since then, archaeologists have discovered much more about Mayan pyramids, writing, and architecture. Read this intriguing volume to learn about Palenque and about the mysteries that still remain.

An ancient city unearthed… In the 1730's, Charles of Bourbon, king of the area around present-day Naples, Italy, learned that local peasants were finding marble and other ancient objects when they dug their wells. He sent army colonel Rocque Joachin Alcubierre and later Karl Jacob Weber to explore the area. Working in darkness with only torches to light their way, Alcubierre's and Weber's crews of workers tunneled through hardened mud. The crews found a marble statue on the very first day. Soon they discovered an ancient Roman theater filled with marble and bronze statues. Later, the crew moved south, where digging was above ground, and they began to uncover the ancient city of Pompeii. This once-vibrant Roman city had been completely buried in lava and ash when the volcano Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. By unearthing this ancient city, Weber spurred interested not only in artifacts, but in how the ancient people lived. By the early nineteenth century, Pompeii was a busy tourist attraction and the once-buried city lived again.