Friday, May 18, 2007

Book Review: Alexander's lost tomb

Saunders, Nicholas J (2006) Alexander's Tomb: The Two Thousand Year Obsession to Find the Lost Conqueror, The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo.
Review by Jill Kamil
"Saunders travelled for decades, carrying out research and taking notes in Greece, Turkey, and Egypt, but his journeys only served to raise new questions and strengthen his interest in this towering historical figure. "For over twenty years," he writes, "the idea of Alexander the Great's tomb has been a fascination. It was less an interest in discovering the tomb or its site, than of searching for its traces in the world, tracking its influence on history, and charting the lives and times of the various characters and personalities who have been associated with it."
Alexander's Tomb brings together thousands of years of conjecture, combining a detailed chronological account of the history of the tomb with the first publication of new discoveries. Using maps and discussions of where the walls of Alexandria stood, and how they changed, Saunders lays out the most likely possibilities.
New research is now revealing hitherto unrecognised evidence, and there is excitement in some academic circles."

See the above page for the entire review