Bean, George E. Aegean Turkey , London: John Murray, 1984.

Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. 0719541646 Second edition revised, reissued 1984. Illustrated with black and white photographs and line drawings in the text, pp xxii, 250, a slight spot mark on the upper edge and the very faintest of marks on the fore-edge, otherwise a very bright copy in dustwrapper. [A splendid copy of one of the essential works of mediterranean archaeology]. [Fortunately, almost by accident, George Bean at the end of his academic career began working on a series of archaeological guide books. These four volumes, Aegean Turkey, Turkey beyond the Maeander, Turkey's Southern Shore and Lycian Turkey, were commissioned by the publisher Ernest Benn. George Bean died in 1977 just as the fourth volume was going to press. Together they form an extraordinary 850 page compendium of learning. The guides bridge the yawning gulf between the unreadable pedant and the gushing populist. They are lucid, neither talking down to, nor losing the reader in the mysteries of a technical vocabulary. Above all they are authorative, not only about the history but also the spirit of the place. They are also energetic. Having exhausted the reader with a complete exploration of Xanthus and the Letoon, it is typical of Bean to casually mention an ancient fortress, "an easy hour's walk to the west of the site." Reading further into this description one becomes aware that few other historians have walked this way since Fellowes made his first visit in 1840 and Bean checked up on his description in 1946. The guides are thorough. Every important ancient site in the 750km between Pergamum and Alanya is described. This great chunk of south-western Turkey must be one of the richest archaeological regions in the world. In addition it is a sublime landscape, a veritable Arcadia (or should one write a Lycia) of forests, rough goat-grazed scrubland, limestone crags and well-watered valleys. To all those educated by centuries of European landscape painting and the ruin hunting prose of John Betjeman and Rose Macaulay this region of Turkey is a form of paradise. For many thousands of tourists, travellers, students and holiday-makers, Bean has been the guide to all this enchantment. His books have appeared in numerous editions, have been translated into dozens of languages, as well as pirated, pillaged and quarried by later writers. From Barnaby Rogerson's website] (Book ref. 006690)  £20.00

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