A vivid account of how people lived in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Iran, Crete, Greece and Rome.

All of us like to hear how people lived long ago. We want not just a record of empires, wars, and the names of kings, but how men worked and worshiped and played, how they dressed and ate and married and traveled and built their houses—how, in short, they really lived from day to day.

To do this, the author has given us wonderfully clear and vivid descriptions of life in the outstanding empires between 3000 B.C and the time of Christ. To these descriptions have been added a great number of pictures, all brimming with action, color, and details, by a superb artist. Finally we have added many photographs, in full color, of ancient scenes and objects. All of this material material has been checked by experts from the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other institutions.

Here are just a few of the exciting subjects covered in these pages:

Mesopotamia: Skyscraper temple-towers called riggurats; the "hanging gardens" of Babylon; ancient "beer parlours"; using animal entrails for "fortune-telling"; "writing paper" made of clay.

Iran: The Persian "pony express"; the earliest coins; sacred dogs; the emperor's hunting parks; elephant "cavalry".

Palestine: Making "royal purple" dyes; the tumbling of the walls of Jericho; the invention of an alphabet; the land of milk and honey; cities that moved.

Crete: The palace that was a labyrinth; the sensational bull-somersaulters, women who dressed in "Paris" fashions; the household snake room.

Egypt: The great pyramids and the tomb robbers; making a mummy; the underworld journey of the dead; an Egyptian woman's beauty aids; hunting a Nile hippo; raising an obelisk; making papyrus paper.

Greece: The first Olympic games; chariot races; the mystery of the oracles; the physical training that made Spartans famous; the first medical clinics; the riddle of the Sphinx.

Rome: Public baths at clubhouses; porridge for the poor and peacocks' tongues for the rich; the slave market; the battles of the gladiators; legions that conquered the world; the master builders of roads and aqueducts; Roman galleys and Mediterranean pirates.

The result is a most fascinating and informative book on the strange lives of our ancestors thousands of years ago.

From the book