Top Five Archaeology Novels
by Heather Pringle
August 29, 2008
This week I had the great pleasure of seeing one of my own books, The Mummy Congress , named on a fellow blogger’s list of the top 75 pop science books . This got me thinking about my own favorite reads on archaeology. This morning, I drew up a list of what I think are the five best novels (or trilogies!) ever written about the ancient past and/or archaeologists.
Now I’d like to hear from you about your own most-thumbed archaeological novels. Add a comment and together we can draw up a more complete list of the best.
1. Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae . *****
This, without a doubt, is one of the finest novels I have ever read. Period. On the surface, it’s a brilliant rendering of the last stand of a sprinkling of Greek hoplites against the overwhelming numbers of the Persian army. But Pressfield, a student of modern warfare, is really examining the nature of courage. What I particularly loved about this book is how he portrays—without any sloppy sentimentality—the Spartan women who watch their men march off to certain death. If you saw and liked the movie, 300 , don’t miss this book.
2. Eduardo Galeano, Memory of Fire ****
This trilogy casts the history of the Americas, particularly the colonial history of Latin America, into the form of a literary masterpiece. Galeano tells the story in a series of short vivid vignettes, beginning poetically with Maya and Inca origin myths and ending three amazing volumes later in the sordid jails of twentieth-century dictators in Latin America. A reviewer in Los Angeles Times ranks Galeano alongside Gabriel Garcia Marquez and John Dos Passos. I agree.
3. Robert Graves, I Claudius ****
If you haven’t yet dipped into the delicious pleasure of this book, head immediately to your nearest library or bookstore. This is an absolute gem. Written in 1934 but certainly not dated, Graves captures the backroom intrigues of Imperial Rome as told through the character of Claudius, a seemingly incompetent stammerer forced at knife point to become Emperor.
4. Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient ***
Let me start with a confession. I loved the movie even more than I did the book. Even so, I think this is a wonderful read. How many first-rate novels, after all, hinge upon a 1930s archaeological expedition to a remote cave in the Sahara and end with espionage for the Germans in the Second World War?
5. Steven Pressfield, The Afghan Campaign: A Novel ***
Ok, I fully admit that I’m a real Steven Pressfield fan. But if you read his novels, you’ll see what I mean about his literary talent and his attention to archaeological detail. These are wonders to behold. The Afghan Campaign tells the story of Alexander the Great’s ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan and the terrible moral toll it takes upon his youngest and greenest troops.
Comments posted here do not represent the views or policies of the Archaeological Institute of America.
Heather Pringle is a freelance science journalist who has been writing about archaeology for more than 20 years. She is the author of Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust and The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead. For more about Heather, see our 
