LIBRO

Egitto, Iraq ed Etruria nelle fotografie di John Alfred Spranger: viaggi e ricerche archeologiche (1929-1936)

di Anastasio, Stefano, Arbeid, Barbara

This volume, in Italian, with an English summary, presents the 1930s archaeological photo-albums of John Alfred Spranger (1889-1968). Engineer, topographer, mountain climber, archaeologist, art collector and photographer, Spranger traveled extensively in the Balkans, Greece, Egypt and the Near East, Canada, Central Asia and left several photo albums detailing archaeological explorations as well as travel memories. In the 1920s-1930s, he took part in a number of Etruscan excavations in Tuscany, together with Harry Burton, the photographer of the Tomb of Tutankhamun. With a pioneering approach, they used the photo-camera to document the excavation work in progress. The albums are dedicated to a trip to Egypt in 1929, a trip to Mesopotamia (Iraq) in 1936 and some surveys and excavations carried out in Etruria (Tuscany, Italy) in 1929-1935. Spranger's photos are particularly meaningful, especially because he combined his skills in using the camera with a great expertise in archaeology and topography. His photos make it possible to understand, after almost a century, how many Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Etruscan sites appeared at the time of their first excavations