Three Stones Make a Wall: The Story of Archaeology

As a professor of classics and archeology and director of the Capital Archeological Institute at George Washington University, no one is better fitted than Eric Cline to tackle the broad scope of Three Stones Make a Wall. The pages are all brimming with detail and may be defined as two books: the first about archeology as a discipline and a parallel account of field work, the second a series of adventures and discoveries he has enjoyed personally over his lengthy career.

In good order, Cline amplifies three of the most exciting “digs” of the twentieth century, perhaps known to readers as the three “Ts”: Tut, Troy, and Tanzania–the king, the city, and earliest man. But beyond closely describing these celebrated discoveries, Cline elaborates on many expeditions across the New World and Old World restoring equally compelling if less familiar civilizations and cultures as distant from each other as Colonial Williamsburg, Belize, Israel, and China’s Shaanxi Province.

As he veers from successive accounts, interlude sections depicted as “Digging Deeper” earn the book special merit: How do you know where and how to dig? How old are the artifacts or features, and who gets to keep what is found?

A more demanding editor might have asked for re-writes in some places where the text tends to sound like transposed classroom lectures.