Harry Thurston

This book has archaeology, history, and the impact of man upon the environment. It tells the story of Dakhla, one of the five western desert oases of Egypt. The oasis has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and through archaeology you learn about the development of this area through history. You learn of it's impact on the Nile Valley civilization and vice versa. The author references ancient texts such as the "Autobiography of Harkhuf" and the "Autobiography of Weni" to tell the story of this oasis. The book ends with a discussion of the environmental impact on this oasis and the earth as a whole by man manipulating water resources, overuse of the land, etc. In this way it is a very timely book due to the current state of climate change and drought in many areas. I highly recommend this book.… (altro)

Not to be confused with Secrets from the Sand, (which is an autobiography of Zawi Hawass), Secrets of the Sands is about the Dakleh Oasis Project, a Canadian-led but internationally crewed archeological research effort that has been ongoing since the 1970s. The Dakleh Oasis is one of a string of oases roughly parallel to and about 200 miles west of the Nile Valley. What makes it especially interesting is it has been continuously inhabited since the Paleolithic - 400000 years of archeological and paleontological evidence.


The author, Harry Thurston, is not an archeologist but, according to the jacket blurb, “a poet and an award-winning journalist and author on science and environmental issues.” This put my back up right away, and I thought my fears were confirmed when, in the very first chapter, Mr. Thurston suggested that fires set by Homo erectus contributed to the formation of the Sahara desert. “Oh wow,” I mumbled to myself, “now the environmentalists are even picking on other species.” However, the rest of the book (except for the obligatory final chapter) was pleasantly restrained. Mr. Thurston really is a good writer, and the book switches back and forth between the prehistory and history of the oasis and the efforts of the archeological team attempting to uncover it with descriptions that are technically correct, explanatory, and vividly descriptive. One thing I especially liked was the emphasis on the day-to-day drudgery of field archeology; picking up a potsherd, carefully inking in “186723", then picking up potsherd 186724 and doing the same, all in 115 heat. It’s a rule of thumb for archeology that every day spent in the field requires three days cataloging, and Egyptology has an especially poor record at this.


This is not to say that there weren’t some spectacular finds at Dakleh; among other things, the world’s oldest book (meaning a collection of bound leaves rather than a scroll) and the oldest Christian Church in Egypt. However, Thurston makes it clear that the bulk of the story of Dakleh comes from meticulous examination of lots of broken pots and decayed mud-brick.


There are a couple of flaws. Except for tiny black-and-white halftones heading each chapter, and one (well done, but only one) map, the book is completely devoid of illustration. This is serious - even a talented writer like Mr. Thurston can’t make 1000 words do the work of a picture. It makes it very difficult to get a feel for the layout of ancient cities and the character of artifacts. I wonder if there was some sort of problem with the Supreme Council of Antiquities or the Dakleh Oasis Project backers? Archeological teams can often be very secretive about publishing stuff before it’s “ready”, and the SCA has hammered some Egyptologists for releasing information before the SCA could get a press release together.



Lastly, as mentioned above, Mr. Thurston cannot resist comparing the “island” Dakleh Oasis with the “island Earth”. He waits till his last chapter, but then we get the entire litany: we’re running out of water, we’re running out of land, there’s too many people, we’re destroying our environment, the Earth will warm up 9 in the next 30 years (!), the United States is already subject to devastating rainfall, etc., etc., etc. We Have To Do Something, People! Wake Up! (As long as “doing something” is confined to ever more urgent hand-wringing and doesn’t inconvenience anybody on the planet that might be “disadvantaged”).


All things considered, though, not a bad book. I wouldn’t use it as an academic reference for the Dakleh Oasis, but it’s a good story. Three and a half stars, I think.… (altro)

A Place Between the Tides is contains years of observation of a salt marsh all packed into one "year"; that is, each chapter contains years' worth of observations taken in that month as opposed to a face-value day-by-day chronology. Usually it works really well. Because let's face it -- a year's worth of observations on a salt marsh might be interesting, but there may be only three or four really tale-worthy events in any given year.

Not that Thurston tells us only of the big things -- the beaching of a minke whale, or the first glimpses of a litter of foxes, or the hurricanes or the peregrine falcon. He spends a gratifying amount of time on the little things, too, the "ordinary" ecology of a salt marsh, talking about the marsh grasses or the processes that bring nutrients into the marsh or carry them out again. Because of my own personal inclinations, I think he's at his best when offering cool tidbits of information about the marsh or its inhabitants.

Facts about the animals, plants or geography of the area are intertwined with poetic descriptions so vivid that I am sure I can see every blade of Spartina sp. grass, every cloud, every minnow. Occasionally the poetic is a little overdone and it slides from vivid and refreshing to excessively wordy and a little purple. Thurston also has a habit of ambushing the reader with fact or opinion about negative human impacts on ecosystems; all important, but sometimes seeming both out of place and counterproductive.

Overall, this is a wonderful book about the rhythms of nature, about history and homecomings, about a very special place, and about one man's deep and abiding love for the world around him. Despite the occasional shortcomings, I highly recommend it for nonfiction and science junkies like myself, or people interested in reading about interesting places and the creatures (human and not) who inhabit them.… (altro)