THE DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

Professor Fagan creates entertaining and unique lectures on the history of archaeology. The combination of knowing interesting details of his subject, having a passionate interest in humanity's past, and being skilled at forming spontaneous thoughts into near poetry rates this course a gold statue for "best performance and script in the classroom." Fagan tenses his voice in anticipation as Howard Carter opens King Tut's tomb. He scorns the early men of archaeology, who were no more than looters of the precious and who hurried and wasted information. Slow words convey the tortuous tedium of translating cuneiform writing, and sad ones tell of using the bricks of a Mesopotamian temple to build a railroad. Fagan's delivery is exciting, his stories true, and he has the slow, articulate enunciation of "Nature" narrator David Attenborough. J.A.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 03]