We can't find the internet
Attempting to reconnect
Something went wrong
Hang in there while we get back on track
£100.00
It has never been this cheap. We have no record of a lower price.
£100 today · cheaper than every other day in the last 3 months
Sidestone Press Archaeology of Touchstones: An introduction based on finds from Birka, Sweden
We'll watch every seller, every day. One email when your price arrives.
Price History & Forecast
Grey patches = out of stock. Cheaper = lower on the chart. Hover for exact prices.
Last 86 days · 86 data points (no recent data)
Historical
Generating forecast…
NEW HERE?
Amazon shows you one price. We show you all of them.
Tosheroon watches Amazon prices so you don't have to. Every product on Amazon has a price history — we make it visible. Set the price you'd actually pay, and we'll email you the second it gets there. No app, no account, one email.
WHAT'S ON THIS PAGE
↑ Price chart
when this has been cheap or pricey
when this has been cheap or pricey
↑ Forecast
where the price is heading next
where the price is heading next
↓ Statistics
all-time high & low, recent range
all-time high & low, recent range
↑ Price alert
name your number, we'll email you
name your number, we'll email you
Price Distribution
Price distribution over 86 days • 1 price levels
Price Analysis
Most common price: £100 (86 days, 100.0%)
Price range: £100 - £100
Price levels: 1 different prices over 86 days
Description
Did ancient Europeans truly believe in an active after-life, as modern Europeans would like to think they did? What purpose did grave-goods actually serve? Are archaeology and the historical sciences in general able to shed, once and for all, a curse placed upon them at their inception as research disciplines in the early nineteenth century? Searching for answers to these questions is the aim of this book which has been written on the basis of widely spread, typical components of grave-goods. For the last two centuries, they have been interpreted incorrectly, because of being aligned with archaeologists’ ideas about the spiritual world of the society in question. The book introduces a recently discovered phenomenon that accompanied mankind from his discovery of the uses of metal all the way through to the Middle Ages – that is the importance of touchstones, tools used to determine the nature and test the nature and value of non-ferrous metals. Of the hundreds of thousands of such finds, which have most often been regarded as ‘whetstones’, the author has made a selection of specimens that cast light on the role of touchstones in the culture of ancient societies, especially in the burial ritual. Forming a key part of the book are the results of chemical microanalyses of metal streaks on the touchstones, a hitherto unused source of information for the skills of ancient metallurgists. Streaks of precious metal are not as important today as the common streaks of lead, tin, brass, etc.; streaks of metals composed of zinc, nickel, mercury, etc., raise new questions. Viking Age Birka serves as a fine example. It has yielded the largest known assemblage of touchstones and also boasts the largest number of such finds to have been analysed in the scanning electron microscope. However, this site has counterparts in Mesopotamia and the Near East, in the ancient Mediterranean region, in the Cimmerian and Scythian environments, in Europe of the Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman and Migration periods, and, in particular, in the northern part of Europe during the Early Middle Ages – anywhere trade was not dominated by coins minted by local authorities. The four-millennium continuity of the essentially unified spiritual life shared by a large part of the Old World came to an end with the onset of Christianity in Europe. This book is intended for archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, ethnologists, archaeometallurgists, and for everybody who wishes to marvel at the consistent symbolic behaviour of ancient societies of the Old World from between, at the least, Mesopotamia, the Altai Mountains and Iceland, despite their cultural, ethnic and religious differences.
Product Specifications
- Brand
- Sidestone Press
- Format
- hardcover
- ASIN
- 9088905185
- Domain
- Amazon UK
- Release Date
- 28 December 2017
- Listed Since
- 31 May 2017
Barcode
No barcode data available
Similar Products You Might Like
88% match
Beyond Use-Wear Traces: Going from tools to people by means of archaeological wear and residue analyses
Sidestone Press
£70.00
08 Aug 2026
88% match
Cultures of Stone: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Materiality of Stone
Sidestone Press
£130.00
16 Oct 2026
87% match
Imprint of Action: The Sociocultural Impact of Public Activities in Archaeology
Sidestone Press
£120.24
16 Oct 2026
86% match
Coastal Archaeology in Small Island: Prehistoric Lifeways, Research Perceptions, Biases, Methods and Approaches
Sidestone Press
£95.00
06 Aug 2026
86% match
European Archaeology: Identities & Migrations: Archéologie européenne: Identités & Migrations
Sidestone Press
£195.00
08 Aug 2026
84% match
The Urban Graveyard: Archaeological perspectives: 2 (Urban Graveyard Proceedings)
Sidestone Press
£150.00
16 Oct 2026
84% match
Papoea: een geschiedenis
Sidestone Press
£75.41
01 Oct 2026
84% match
Chalk Hill: Neolithic and Bronze Age discoveries at Ramsgate, Kent
Sidestone Press
£130.00
16 Oct 2026
84% match
Tracing Technoscapes: The Production of Bronze Age Wall Paintings in the Eastern Mediterranean
Sidestone Press
£135.00
16 Oct 2026
84% match
Pre-Colonial and Post-Contact Archaeology in Barbados: Past, Present, and Future Research Directions: 5 (Taboui)
Sidestone Press
£150.00
01 Oct 2026
84% match
Magical, Mundane or Marginal?: Deposition Practices in the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik Culture
Sidestone Press
£135.00
16 Oct 2026
84% match
The Archaeology of the ‘Margins’: Studies on Ancient West Asia in Honour of Peter M.M.G. Akkermans (Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia)
Sidestone Press
£115.00
01 Oct 2026
83% match
Royalty and Ritual: The landscape of power in early medieval Scotland and Europe
Sidestone Press
£95.00
04 Aug 2026
83% match
From Primitives to Primates: A History of Ethnographic and Primatological Analogies in the Study of Prehistory
Sidestone Press
£120.00
12 Aug 2026
83% match
Cleaning and Value: Interdisciplinary Investigations
Sidestone Press
£115.00
01 Oct 2026
83% match
Landscapes of Survival: The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Jordan’s North-Eastern Desert and Beyond
Sidestone Press
£190.00
16 Oct 2026
83% match
Landscapes of Survival: The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Jordan’s North-Eastern Desert and Beyond
Sidestone Press
£114.00
08 Aug 2026
83% match
Tracking the Neolithic in the Near East: Lithic Perspectives on Its Origins, Development and Dispersals
£190.00
08 Aug 2026
83% match
Place, Encounter, and the Making of Communities: The Lower Sirwan/Upper Diyala River Valley from Prehistory to the Iron Age (Sirwan Regional Project Publications)
Sidestone Press
£80.00
16 Oct 2026
83% match
Settling Waterscapes in Europe: The Archaeology of Neolithic & Bronze Age Pile-Dwellings (Open in Prehistoric Archaeology, 1)
£80.23
01 Oct 2026
83% match
The Arts of Making in Ancient Egypt: Voices, Images, and Objects of Material Producers 2000–1550 BC
Sidestone Press
£130.00
01 Oct 2026
83% match
Archaeology and Geomatics: Harvesting the benefits of 10 years of training in the Iberian Peninsula (2006-2015)
Sidestone Press
£135.00
16 Oct 2026
83% match
Under the Mediterranean II: Studies in Maritime Archaeology (Honor Frost Foundation Research Publication, 3)
Sidestone Press
£95.00
01 Oct 2026
83% match
De stad en de dood: Archeologische perspectieven: 1 (Urban Graveyard Proceedings)
Sidestone Press
£90.00
16 Oct 2026