Drawing on Archaeology: Bringing History to Life

by Victor G. Ambrus, Mick Aston (Foreword)

How does excavation enable the archaeologist to reconstruct the past? Victor Ambrus, who has been the Channel 4 Time Team artist since the programme's inception in 1994, has selected some of the key excavations from the many series to show how it has been possible to recreate snapshots of the past.

Genres: History, Art, Archaeology

120 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

Victor Ambrus (born László Győző Ambrus, 19 August 1935) was a British illustrator of history, folk tale, and animal story books. He also became known from his appearances on the Channel 4 television archaeology series Time Team, on which he visualised how sites under excavation may have once looked. Ambrus was an Associate of the Royal College of Art and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Society of Painters, Etchers and Engravers. He was also a patron of the Association of Archaeological Illustrators and Surveyors up until its merger with the Institute for Archaeologists in 2011.

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

After watching many, many, many episodes of the Time Team show on YouTube while I was in college, I finally had pick up a book of some sort from the series to keep on the home shelf. To find this one full of all the illustrations done for several archaeology digs, authored by the illustrator himself, was a real treat. This isn't a how-to book; more of an anecdotal commentary on the excavations done, the illustration conditions, and you can get into the mind of the artist as he explains some of the choices he made for the illustrations. It really brings history to life.