Deities and Dolphins: The Story of Nabataeans.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965. First Edition. Hardcover. Thick quarto. 650pp. Black cloth gilt-lettered on spine, gilt rules to upper board. Index. B/w frontis. & illustrations. Maps. A remarkable study of the little known Nabataean civilisation, which flourished in the Transjordan region of the Middle East (encompassing much of the Sinai, Arabia, and present-day Syria) in the first centuries B.C. and A.D. "The deities and dolphins [of the title] were discovered by Dr. Glueck when, as director of the American School of Oriental Research, Jerusalem, he excavated the Nabataean temple of Khirbet Tanur, the most complete temple of its kind to be opened up. Among the deities was a goddess wearing on her head a stone tiara of two dolphins facing each other in heraldic juxtaposition. In this book the author searches out and pieces together the evidence explaining why there are likenesses of dolphins in the desertland of Arabia--the old Roman Provincia Arabia. The importance of the dolphins lies in the clues they furnish for increased understanding of the Hellenistic-Semitic cultures of the Near East at the time of the Nabataeans (who spoke both an Aramic dialect and Greek), and for revealing in a new light the commerce and other contacts between the Orient and the Occident." Top edge foxed and dusty, cloth a trifle faded overall otherwise a tight, clean VG+ copy in VG dust jacket. (Dust jacket lightly chafed and rubbed at edges, inner flaps a bit browned, clipped). Item #49905
Price: $12.00