Overview

Outside of scientific journals, archaeologists are depicted as searching for lost cities and mystical artifacts in news reports, television, video games, and movies like Indiana Jones or The Mummy. This fantastical image has little to do with day-to-day science, yet it is deeply connected to why people are fascinated by the ancient past. By exploring the development of archaeology, this book helps us understand what archaeology is and why it matters. In Spooky Archaeology author Jeb J. Card follows a trail of clues left by adventurers and professional archaeologists that guides the reader through haunted museums, mysterious hieroglyphic inscriptions, fragments of a lost continent that never existed, and deep into an investigation of magic and murder. Card unveils how and why archaeology continues to mystify and why there is an ongoing fascination with exotic artifacts and eerie practices.

Full Product Details

9780826359148

Table of Contents

Reviews

"This is a book to read and reread."""" - Fortean Times """"Spooky Archaeology is more than just a cabinet of curiosities. It also explains how those curiosities work culturally, and where they came from. In some ways it's a social history of archaeology."""" - Black Gate """"Card's fine book sees the relationships between the 'spooky' and the scientific in archaeology as not altogether antagonistic, which furthers our understanding of how people process their pasts and use them."""" - Larry J. Zimmerman, author of The Sacred Wisdom of the Native Americans"

An excellent look at why we have romanticized this one science more than other fields of study. . . . It's an outstandingly interesting subject, which has been well thought out by Card, excellently researched and very well written. It's educational and entertaining. It takes the reader on an adventure full of professional archaeologists as well as shady characters, mysterious inscriptions, haunted museums, magical places, and continents that never were. --Bowling Green Daily News Card's fine book sees the relationships between the 'spooky' and the scientific in archaeology as not altogether antagonistic, which furthers our understanding of how people process their pasts and use them. --Larry J. Zimmerman, author of The Sacred Wisdom of the Native Americans Spooky Archaeology is more than just a cabinet of curiosities. It also explains how those curiosities work culturally, and where they came from. In some ways it's a social history of archaeology. --Black Gate This is a book to read and reread. --Fortean Times

Card's fine book sees the relationships between the 'spooky' and the scientific in archaeology as not altogether antagonistic, which furthers our understanding of how people process their pasts and use them. --Larry J. Zimmerman, author of The Sacred Wisdom of the Native Americans Spooky Archaeology is more than just a cabinet of curiosities. It also explains how those curiosities work culturally, and where they came from. In some ways it's a social history of archaeology. --Black Gate This is a book to read and reread. --Fortean Times

Author Information

Jeb J. Card is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Anthropology at Miami University. He is the coeditor of Lost City, Found Pyramid: Understanding Alternative Archaeologies and Pseudoscientific Practices.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available