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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;John Anthony, post: 1698173, member: 42773&quot;]We&#039;ve had discussions about book purchases, pdf downloads, and favorite reference materials, but I&#039;d like to start a thread that gives people an opportunity to list the books they are currently reading that enhance their ancient and/or world numismatic knowledge. Reviews are also encouraged - let us know what you think of the books.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m not reading anything specifically about numismatics at the moment, but I am going through a book called <i><b>The Nabataeans, Builders of Petra</b>, </i>by Dan Gibson. When I say &quot;going through&quot; I mean stopping often to look up place names, rulers, battles, gods, etc. Being a newcomer to ancient history, I&#039;ve got a lot of work to do to catch up with the rest of you.</p><p><br /></p><p>Dan Gibson is one of the foremost authorities on Nabataean history, having spent many years researching the culture and visiting the ancient sites - even traveling their trade routes. <b><i>The Nabataeans, Builders of Petra</i></b> is more of a colloquial book than a scholarly essay, but he has written a number of scholarly works which you can find on <a href="http://www.academia.edu" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.academia.edu" rel="nofollow">www.academia.edu</a>. He has an excellent website at <a href="http://www.nabataea.net" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.nabataea.net" rel="nofollow">www.nabataea.net</a> as well - if you want free, well-researched information about this civilization, that should be your first stop.</p><p><br /></p><p><a href="http://postimage.org/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://postimage.org/" rel="nofollow"><img src="http://s17.postimg.org/9dj2ag0bz/gibson.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m also reading the collected works of the ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, but that&#039;s the sort of thing I can&#039;t read all in one stretch. I take a few paragraphs a day, intermingled with other reading. I think it&#039;s vital to read source material from the ancient world as much as possible, to get at least some of the information from the horse&#039;s mouth, as it were.</p><p><br /></p><p>Edit: I also recently watched an A&amp;E special called <i><b>Ancient Mysteries: The Hidden City of Petra</b>, </i>narrated by Leonard Nimoy. It&#039;s a very basic overview of the Nabataean culture, but it&#039;s quite well-done, and the cinematography is compelling, to say the least.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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