SECRETS FROM ANCIENT GRAVES

All the secrets of these ten royal ancients have been divulged before--Khufu's methods and reasons for building the Great Pyramid, Sennacherib's destruction of Babylon, Quetzalcoatl's bloody sacrifices, Leif Ericsson's discoveries and the Vineland Map; the related investigations are also previously recorded. Ostensibly about an individual, each chapter is actually an amalgam of archaeology, history, supposition and speculation in which, for lack of evidence, the individual may figure little: the focus moves from Hattusilis III's ill health as a child to the decline and fall of the Hittite Empire, from the unknown Wuffing King who wasn't discovered with his treasure at Sutton Hoo to description of life in East Anglia. The only viable portrait is of the Chinese Emperor Ch'in Shih Huang Ti building his great wall, burning books and beheading careless slaves; but it doesn't have much to do with archaeology--most of the information is drawn from legends and extant history. A dubious format for familiar material presented with greater acuity elsewhere.