Format: Hardback
Pages: 264
ISBN: 9781842179925
Pub Date: 04 Oct 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: UBC Studies in the Ancient World
Illustrations: 137 b/w & 9 colour illus
Description:
Adorning the north-west staircase in the British Museum is a group of brightly coloured figured mosaic pavements. Most were excavated for the Museum between 1856 and 1859 at Carthage, in what is now Tunisia, by a dilettante called Nathan Davis; the work was funded by the Foreign Office of the British Government. This book recounts for the first time the extraordinary story behind this pioneering enterprise and the political and cultural rivalry between representatives of the colonial powers as they asserted their rights to explore the buried remains of one of the ancient world's greatest cities.