Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders

Peet, T. Eric (Thomas Eric), 1882-1934Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 229K words
Chapters: 23

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders by T. Eric PeetAuthor: Peet, T. Eric (Thomas Eric), 1882-1934,Language: English, Class: GN: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Anthropology, Release Date: Apr 8, 2005

Editor's review

Written by the British Egyptologist Thomas Eric Peet, this book focuses on large rough-stone monuments scattered across Europe, the Mediterranean, and beyond, discussing their forms, distribution, and builders. Trained in archaeology and anthropology, the author classifies the monuments and attempts to explain megalithic architecture's functions and construction methods within a comparative framework; the prose is concise and well organized, making it a representative early twentieth-century study of megalithic culture. Some specific inferences have been updated by later archaeological discoveries, but its questions and comparative method remain valuable. Suitable as reading for understanding the history of megalithic research and supplementing introductory archaeological knowledge, and for travelers interested in prehistoric monuments.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Beginners interested in prehistoric archaeology and megalithic culture
Travelers planning to visit European megalithic sites who need background knowledge
Readers interested in the history of archaeology and early research methods

Not a good fit for

Specialist researchers seeking the latest archaeological findings and absolute dating data
Readers expecting detailed plates and on-site guidebooks

Reading tips

Read the chapters on monument classification and distribution first to build an overall framework before delving into individual cases.
Note the author's basis for inference, distinguishing verifiable facts from speculation.
Compare with more recent megalithic site studies to observe changes in methodology and conclusions.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Which regions' monuments does the book discuss?

It mainly covers rough-stone monuments in Europe and the Mediterranean periphery, with references to similar monuments in broader regions, classified by form and function. The author uses a comparative approach, focusing on similarities and building traditions across regions rather than a single-country survey.

Do the archaeological conclusions still hold today?

As early twentieth-century research, some dating judgments and functional speculations have been revised by later dating techniques and new discoveries. Read it as a document in the history of scholarship, valuing its questions and comparative approach, while checking specific conclusions against contemporary archaeological reports rather than accepting them wholesale.

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About the author

Peet, T. Eric (Thomas Eric), 1882-1934 Author · British · 1882–1934

Thomas Eric Peet (1882–1934), usually credited as T. Eric Peet, was a British Egyptologist. Public information about his life is limited; he is known chiefly for his research on the early history of Egypt and Palestine. Besides his specialist works, he wrote Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders, which turns to prehistoric megalithic structures and discusses their forms and construction. Judging from his surviving works, his writing addresses archaeological remains directly, focusing on materials and building methods, and states facts plainly rather than elaborating at length. His works are still consulted by researchers in the field, and this book is one of them.