Articles, animations, virtual environments, webcams, and more than 1,500 photos--that's just part of what Eternal Egypt (www.eternalegypt.org) brings to your computer screen. It's a veritable deluge of information, but how good is it? Great, if volume is what you're looking for. Great, too, if you want to go beyond pharaonic Egypt to the Coptic and Islamic periods. But some of the digital bells and whistles are more successful than others. The animations, such as how the Nile flood was measured in ancient times, are good, while the virtual Tut's tomb is less evocative than the old black-and-white photographs first taken after its discovery in 1922.
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Capitalizing on the wave of publicity unleashed by the Hollywood blockbuster Troy, BBC Video is rereleasing its epic six-hour documentary In Search of the Trojan War on DVD ($34.98). Though shot in the early 1980s, the filmmaking has held up pretty well and mixes drama and scholarship in equal parts. Extras include an extended interview with program host Michael Wood, which gives him a chance to discuss what's happened in the field during the last twenty years, focusing especially on the exciting discoveries made by archaeologists during recent excavations at Hisarllk.
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A readable overview of the complex prehistoric cultures of the eastern United States, The Moundbuilders (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2004; $39.95), by archaeologist George Milner, succeeds on several levels. Gorgeous color illustrations of the most spectacular copper and ceramic artifacts discovered at mound sites are among the finest published presentations of these objects. The book also features a guide to dozens of mound centers, including major sites like Cahokia, near St. Louis, as well as smaller and more obscure ones.
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