Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World

by Philip Matyszak

An overview of the lost peoples and cultures who flourished and fought for survival alongside the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

Beyond the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews of the Classical and Biblical eras, a rich diversity of peoples helped lay the foundations of the modern world. Philip Matyszak brings to life these cultures and individuals that made up the busy, brawling multicultural mass of humanity that emerged from the ancient Middle East and spread across the Mediterranean and Europe. He explores the origins of forty forgotten peoples, their great triumphs and defeats, and considers the legacy they have left to us today, whether it be in fine art or everyday language.

This carefully researched and illuminating history is the perfect introduction for the modern reader, packed with surprising facts and fascinating stories, detailed maps and beautiful illustrations of artefacts and sites of interest. Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World offers a new understanding of these important civilizations that have been obscured by the passage of time.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Audiobook, Archaeology, Ancient, Anthropology

288 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2020

About the author

Philip Matyszak is a British nonfiction author, primarily of historical works relating to ancient Rome. Matyszak has a doctorate in Roman history from St. John's College, Oxford. In addition to being a professional author, he also teaches ancient history for Madingley Hall Institute of Continuing Education, Cambridge University.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a history book of the peoples, mostly of Europe and the Near East and Fertile Crescent, for people who don't like history books. There are about forty different peoples, not all forgotten, we've all heard of the Hittites and the Vandals for instance. The Vandals, a Germanic people, sacked Rome, which is probably why their name lives on in a not too flattering meaning. All these peoples get 4-7 pages, so no long boring details of the endless wars and political campaigns of their kings, short ones instead!

It would be a good bathroom book for a family that prides itself on its intellectual accomplishments. I used to go to lunch occasionally with these people who accompanied the pudding (dessert) with endless round-the-table puns and afterwards played games drawn from books like Improve your IQ. This book would suit them.

I found this interesting, "It was customary for Lydian girls to charge for sex until they had accumulated a satisfactory dowry, after which they became respectable married women." Did they get a proposal because they now were worth money, or having got enough money, they did the proposing, or did some customer crushing on his sex goddess want it for free? Lydia was famous for being the first people to make and use silver and gold coins and to go in for retail trade - according to Herodotus. The only famous Lydian everyone knows is the king, Croesus, from the phrase, rich as Croesus.

I can't imagine that retail trade was invented by anyone, it would just have happened as a development from exchanging, for example, a really nicely cooked stew for a portion of that day's successful hunt. And then a few more people thinking what a great cook this person was, have some more meat, but I haven't got any right now, so I'll give you this token so you know when I do get it, you can give it to me back for a share. A way of keeping tally, the same as notches on a tally stick which is no more than the beginnings of accounts.

The Bible, the Old Testament, is where the author is on strong ground as there have been many archeological digs that can reconstruct civilizations. Of the twelve Tribes of Israel, not all have disappeared - the Ethiopian Jews say they are of the tribe of Dan and many Ethiopians will tell you that they were originally Jews who converted to Christianity. The Igbo Jews of Nigeria say they are the descendents of at least 5 tribes. I'm one of the twelve tribes, but I don't know which.

My son had his dna done and i thought his mitrochondrial dna (meaning me) would be Ashkenazi Jewish since both sides of my family are Russian. Not a bit of it, it's an ancient haplogroup dating back to the Levant, to Israel, Lebanon, Palestine. This means that there must have been an awful lot of these ancient tribes in Russia and none of them married out until me! The mystery is that I have high cheekbones and slightly slanted green eyes, kinda Russian, not kinda Middle-Eastern.

I like the way it proves and disproves various books of the Torah (Old Testament, Bible etc). Jericho was a load of propaganda, it was most likely the Egyptians that razed it. Carbon dating proves conclusively it wasn't the Israelites. On the other there are battles and politics described in Kings that are borne out by archaeological evidence.

So really interesting book with excellent illustrations - photographs mainly of sculpture, carvings and other artefacts and not terribly taxing intellectually, a book I dipped in and out of and enjoyed..

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

So enter one of my Christmas 2021 loot, I tend to ask and get these book and so far this book is an interesting story in which in 4 big time slots in early history
The first civilisations 2700BC-1200BC
From Assyrya to Alexander 1200BC-323BC
the Raise of Rome 753BC-235AC
The fall of the West-Roman empire 235AC-550AC
Each time period contains an amount of of lost peoples and get told about them in 6-7 pages, some names ring a bell and some actually have featured in the Old Testament. And show that this religious collectio of books represent various times and peoples in what we now call the middle east.

What is lacking is is an explanation about what happened 1200BC around that time quite a few civilisations disappeared or get damaged like the Egyptian society that get visited by the sea-people. Which could be an interesting subject for another book albeit that there is no clear answer to be found among the many historians specialised in that time period. Which is exactly what makes ancient history bloody fascinating.

Another interesting part for me is that in my Dutch language some of these peoples get mentioned in sayings like the Vandals or the Filistines, and we still use the same meaning attached to those people as they were originally attached by the peoples that encountered them in their own time period. There seems to be little change in these saying in the time past.

Fun moment, the new folks from the latest Asterix comic Album also feature in this bundle of forgotten peoples gladly there is still evidence of these various people existence to be found only that most of these have ceased to exist to our knowledge and some remain in very small numbers.

It is a humbling read about people who created societies and they were lost in time were it not for a few clues.
The book ends with an excellent poem:

Cities and Thrones and Powers,
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth,
The Cities rise again. — Rudyard Kipling

[Peter Tillman]

Nature's brief review, in their weekly five best science book picks:
"Western ideas on antiquity are dominated by Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hebrews, Greeks and Romans, with other cultures often reduced to stereotypes. Historian Philip Matyszak asks: were the Philistines philistines and the Vandals vandals? His stimulating encyclopaedia of 40 “forgotten peoples” begins with the Akkadians around 2330 bc and ends with the Hephthalites (‘White Huns’) in the fifth century ad. Illustrations include a Roman-style Vandal mosaic; far from vilifying Roman culture, the Vandals respected it, say current historians."

And just 288 pages! Try for an eARC?

[T.R. Preston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this from start to finish. So many civilizations have been built and lost over the course of time. So many people were here who lived, fought, and loved, and are now just dust in the wind (I dare you not to play the Kansas song in your head after reading that).

I was most interested to read about The Sea Peoples. History's biggest mystery. The Bronze Age Collapse . . . caused by . . . who the hell knows? We still have no clue to this day who these people were or where they came from. We only have several different theories that all contradict each other. That is just absurd. Who were these motherfuckers?

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een paar van de dingen die mij altijd ontzettend gestoord hebben bij de geschiedenisles, en bij geschiedenisboeken in het algemeen, is dat er over het algemeen een grote voorkeur uitgaat naar onderwerpen die alom bekend zijn, en ook dat er steeds meer aandacht wordt besteed aan iets naargelang je dichter bij het heden komt. Dat eerste punt, daar kan ik nog inkomen, want je moet tenslotte ergens een selectie maken. Maar dan nog zou het wel een keer plezant zijn om zo nu en dan korte lessen te krijgen over... andere dingen. Dingen die misschien iets minder relevant zijn in de algehele ontwikkeling van de geschiedenis, maar daarom niet minder interessant. Dat tweede punt heb ik altijd idioot gevonden. Alsof er nu meer gebeurt dan vroeger.
Blijkbaar - gelukkig - ben ik niet de enige die zich daaraan stoort. Philip Matyszak lijkt dezelfde mening toegedaan te zijn - dat blijkt wel uit zijn voor- en nawoord -, en heeft dus maar het heft in eigen handen genomen. In Vergeten Volkeren stelt hij een veertigtal volkeren voor die de voorbije 5000 jaar in de invloedssfeer van de Middellandse Zee en Mesopotamië hebben geleefd, en die grotendeels vergeten zijn. Je moet die invloedssfeer ruim beschouwen: de Romeinen hebben tot in Schotland gezeten, en Alexander de Grote tot in Indië. Zo ongeveer in dat gebied bevinden alle besproken stammen dus.
Hij had er ongetwijfeld nog meer uit kunnen kiezen, maar dit is in elk geval een mooi begin. Met enige trots kan ik zeggen dat er wel een aantal waren die ik al kende en/of waar ik op zijn minst wel vaag van had gehoord - dan denken we onder andere aan de Meden, de Juten en de Visigoten - maar over het algemeen pikt hij er effectief wel namen uit die echt bij nauwelijks iemand een belletje doen rinkelen. Nabateeërs, Hyksos, Akkadiërs... Het blijft maar doorgaan.
Elk volk krijgt zes bladzijdes, ingeleid door een korte quote die iemand er ooit over heeft neergeschreven, gevolgd door een geschiedkundig overzicht. Op het einde staat er telkens een 'Echo's in de toekomst', een korte paragraaf waarin Matyszak een paar dingen aangeeft die de volkeren ons op de een of andere manier gegeven hebben.
Vanwege de korte beschrijvingen - op zes bladzijdes krijg je wel wat gezegd, maar nu ook niet al te veel - gaat het nooit vervelen. Er zitten geen oeverloze, ellenlange besprekingen over details in het boek, dus het leest nog snel ook. De auteur blijft grotendeels neutraal, maar vaak komt hij toch met korte, droge commentaar die het boek helemaal afmaken, en de tekst erg levendig. Naarmate het boek vordert lijkt hij steeds meer in zijn element te komen, en de vertaler trouwens ook. Beide mannen hebben zich hier steeds meer laten gaan, het enthousiasme en de passie voor het onderwerp spat eraf. Wat de vertaling nog betreft: in het begin staan er wat meer typfoutjes, maar in de tweede helft van het boek nog nauwelijks.
De hoofdstukken zijn verdeeld in vier grote delen die allemaal ook duidelijk bij elkaar horen. Vaak komen dezelfde namen terug, en vooral in het laatste deel zitten veel volkeren elkaar constant in de haren. Erg tof is ook dat uiteindelijk de cirkel helemaal rond is, zoals Matyszak zelf al zegt.
Het jammere is dat het natuurlijk beperkt is in 1) tijd en vooral 2) ruimte. Naast (een deel van) Europa en het Nabije/Midden-Oosten wordt er niks gezegd. Dat is wel logisch, want anders telt zo'n boek al rap 1000 bladzijdes, waarschijnlijk. Ik hoop in elk geval dat hij zich later nog gaat toeleggen op andere tijdvakken en continenten. Het is de moeite waard! Onderhoudend en interessant!
9,5/10

[Peter Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forgotten People of the Ancient World by Phillip Matyszak

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

This is a fun book. It is not a particularly deep book, but it's not intended to be deep. Instead, the author, Phillip Matyszak, seems to be going for a popular appeal by making it succinct, light, occasionally humorous, and broad.

The book covers four broad sweeps of time: (a) the First Civilizations, (b) from Akkad to Alexander; (c) the peoples wiped out by Rome, and (d) the people who brought down Rome. So, with that inventory, the book starts in the Mid-East and gradually makes it way west until the final entry returns us to the Persian-Indian border with the White Huns, aka the Hephthalites.

As a history lover, I've often read these names in passing without giving them more thought than I would a background character in Shakespeare. This was an interesting "backgrounder" to situate these people in their historical context as individuals.

[Assaph Mehr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matyszak is one of my favourite popular historians, and I loved previous books of his. This books offers a review of people and nations you've probably heard of in passing, and promises to give you a deeper understanding of those forgotten people and their impact on later generations.

What to Expect

The book is divided into 4 parts, from the first civilisations to rise, to the early iron age, through the rise and then the fall of Rome. As those great civilisations rose and fell, they came into contact with other people, and they are the focus of this book.

Each section follows a few of those lesser known people, from their first appearance in recorded history to their eventual disappearance. Many of them are only known from the records of the "big" civilisations that left records, but Matyszak carefully collects all the evidence - historical and archaeological to present a picture of what life was for them.

What I liked

I love Matyszak flowing style, that brings dusty archaeological remains and obscure original references to life. He keeps you engaged and involved in those long forgotten people, while gently educating and expanding your understanding of historical processes at the same time.

What to be aware of

This is not a primary history book. Each section follows a particular people, about their interactions with others. It can be a big disjointed if you try to follow overall events, as the aim is different. It will broaden and deepen your understanding of what happens at the edges of history.

Felix's Review

Felix, who comes from one of the "main" cultures, has seen both those 'barbarian' waves crashing against the borders of his burgeoning empire and conquered people thoughtlessly integrated into his culture. He has a low opinion of the politicians leading his republic so he wasn't surprised to hear that their mismanagement has caused many allied or subjugated people to turn into intractable enemies. Still, for him, life is what it is and he plans to make the most of the ascendancy of his culture.

Summary

I love reading history, and this books offers a very unique perspective about subjects not often covered in depth. If you want to learn more than the beaten path, this is for you.
--
Assaph Mehr, author of Murder In Absentia: A story of Togas, Daggers, and Magic - for lovers of Ancient Rome, Murder Mysteries, and Urban Fantasy.

[Emiliya Bozhilova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Известната ни с повече подробности история е страшно млада спрямо възрастта на човечеството. Много народи и племена остават в здрача на историята и са със статут на любопитен факт, част от нечия чужда и често враждебна митология (гръцка, еврейска от стария завет, християнска - от новия) или част от хрониките на техните врагове. С две думи - истината за тях не е известна, противоречията са много, а фактите - малко. Но в книгата си Матижак се опитва да им отдаде дължимото, макар и в силно съкратена форма. Поне имената на акадци, аморити, хити, самаряни, арамейци, филистимци, траки, набатейци, остготи и още много други са придружени с уважение, симпатични илюстрации и са извадени от пълна забрава.

3,5⭐️

[Linniegayl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this in audio and really enjoyed both the book and the narration. While I had heard of some of the "forgotten peoples" it was mostly in the context of some group the Greeks or Romans or Egyptians were fighting. This book gives them their due on their own. No, it can't be comprehensive, as 40 different "peoples" are covered over the course of the book. But it's a great introduction.

The book is divided into four main sections: (1) the first civilizations (Amorites, Hyksos, Akkadians, etc.); (2) from Assyria to Alexander (Dorians, Phrygians, Medes, etc.); (3) the coming of Rome (Thracians, Epirots, Galatians, etc.); and (4) the fall of Rome in the west (Vandals, Visigoths, Jutes, etc.).

I am definitely going to read this again, next time in print, not because I disliked the narration, but because I want to look at the illustrations and photos included in the print version (which I own), and I want to think longer about each of the groups. I suspect that after that, I'll go on to read more about some of the individual "peoples" who intrigue me the most.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ancient Mediterranean world was full of peoples who showed up in the annals of the ancient Greeks and Romans (e.g. Scythians, Iberian Celts, Medes, Illyrians, Lydians, Arveni, Thracians, Visigoths) or the Bible (e.g. Canaanites, Elamites, Hittites, Philistines), but eventually faded from history, absorbed or displaced by other groups. Not much is known of these “forgotten peoples”, as remaining records tend to be sketchy and/or unreliable, or to use the same names to mean different things (or vice-versa), but that doesn't mean that they didn't leave a mark on the world or didn't have rich histories.

In this book, Philip Matyszak provides an overview of what current scholarship has to say of each such nation, as well as a bit about the historiography around them. It’s not much, in any one case, but there are plenty of interesting anecdotes sprinkled throughout the book, such as the story of a tribe that migrated all the way from Scandinavia to North Africa, discussion of a brief cultural melding between Greece and India, or the fact that the ancient world had its own fascinations with the long-ago past, as evidenced by an archeologist king who was digging up ruins, around two thousand years ago, of a society two thousand years older than that. Try to get your mind around that, if you can. The reader gets a sense of the ancient world as a colorful, diverse, and ever-changing one, with shifting alliances, hostilities, and cultural interchange. I couldn’t help but think that the shifting demographics of the United States, a reality currently contributing to a certain amount of political unrest here, really aren’t anything remarkable in the grand sweep of history, especially in a country that hasn’t even been around for the historically paltry span of three hundred years. A mere two hundred years before that, of course, the cultural makeup of North America was entirely different yet again. (Rome, by comparison, including the early kingdom and the late Byzantine empire, was around from 750 BC to 1453 AD, with its peak lasting about six hundred years.)

Naturally, I would have liked to hear more about less well-known peoples from other parts of the world besides the Mediterranean -- or even some of the more recent history from that geographic area (it doesn’t go much further than the end of the Roman Empire) -- but I recognize that the author was writing from his particular area of academic expertise. For what it is, this was a satisfying enough audiobook. It’s also short enough to be a manageable listen.

Funnily enough, a few of the peoples mentioned here show up in the fictional novel I decide to read next, so this proved to be good prep.

[Maggie Anton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well-written book that is a pleasure to read. Non-archaeologists will appreciate it just as much, and maybe more, than professionals in the field. I learned a lot about ancient societies in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, but despite the misleading title, unfortunately not much about Asia, and nothing about the Americas. But that's not why I'm reading it. Author Philip Matyszak has a background in Western Classical Antiquity and appears to have purposefully limited Forgotten Peoples of the Ancient World to "give a picture of the busy, brawling, multicultural mass of humanity which occupied the ancient Middle East, Mediterranean and parts of Europe." While this clearly omits the rest of the world, it is in keeping with his academic background and his own stated intent.

[Mario · Rating 5 out of 5]

Resumir esta maravilla de libro es imposible, aunque supongo que "Perspectiva" sería la mejor palabra para describirlo. Perspectiva sobre lo pequeños que somos los humanos, en general, en el infinito tiempo e infinito universo; perspectiva sobre qué tan reciente y corta es nuestra "historia moderna"; perspectiva sobre los imperios, el poder, las guerras, la muerte, puestos a disposición uno a uno en mi pequeño estudio; perspectiva sobre la humanidad, el tiempo, la trascendencia, el sentido de la vida.

Me ha encantado la manera en que está estructurado el libro, con cada pueblo siendo abarcado de manera general y con un breve apartado llamado "Future echoes", que nos permite ver la trascendencia de dicho pueblo en la historia: raíces lingüistas, tradiciones que perduran después de miles de años, inspiración para el arte, y demás.

Este libro me ha dado lo que Sapiens me negó: una visión al pasado que me transmitiera el poder y la decadencia por las que ha atravesado la humanidad desde sus orígenes, otorgándome perspectiva sobre la especie, y sobre la trascendencia del ser humano y de ser humano.

[Isabelle reads a book a day because she has no friends · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Craig Chapman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting read about smaller lost people.
From the the Akkadians to the Hephthalites.

Which out these groups of people some of the greatest civilisations of all time may not have existed at all

[Karina Samyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best interessant. Vergeten volkeren of liever vergane volkeren. Sommige bekender dan anderen, ieder zijn hoofdstukje. Meer dan een introductie kan het dan ook niet zijn. Maar met de uitgebreide bibliografie achteraan kun je verder. Wat opvalt : geschiedenis van volkeren is geschiedenis van oorlog.

[Andrew Foote · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book consists of short chapters on various peoples of the ancient world that the author regards as "forgotten". Each chapter is self-contained and short, and it's fairly light, introductory-level reading; for each of the individual peoples, you could learn a greater amount of information by reading the Wikipedia page, the main difference being that if you were just browsing Wikipedia, you probably wouldn't read all these articles at the same time. Also there's a handy list of further reading to consult for each chapter, which I might make some use of.

I am pleased to say that I already knew a bit about each of the peoples covered in the book. To be fair, peoples like the Hittites, Medes, Thracians and Vandals aren't quite the most "forgotten" of ancient peoples; they generally were quite historically significant to do at some point or other; I guess the author has to be able to write at least a few pages about them, and that would be difficult with to do with the most truly obscure peoples such as the Pelasgians, Massagetae or Vistula Veneti.

[Matin Pyron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was indeed flabbergasted and somewhat awed when I came to this realization that how many unique civilizations used to reign the world, yet I had not the faintest idea they existed!
the inside cover of the book depicting the relief carvings of The Persepolis is, in fact, exquisite, and I loved it to my core since my nationality is Iranian(Persian).
On the one hand, the first half of the book is quite interesting, which makes the readers hooked to each chapter.
On the other hand, the second half is remarkably confusing because personally, I would come across these absurd names of the ancient Roman people, and I could not discern which one is which!
The ancient Roman names are much harder than the majority of the names mentioned in the Old Testament of the Holy Bible nonetheless.
However, it should be noted that there is an apparent mistake that I could not ignore:

" Like many Iranian peoples, the Sarmatians seem to have been fireworshippers."and " Indian texts Report that the Hephthalites Is were fire-worshippers." (Matyszak. Phillip)

well, the main problem here is the term "fire worshippers" is incorrect! Zoroastrians(misunderstood fire-worshippers), also known as Persians, worshipped one God named AhuraMazda(Yahweh), which means the giver of wisdom, but they always stand before fire for its purity same as Muslims facing the Kabba stone.
Even in the epic book of Shahnameh( The Book Of Kings), Ferdowsi points out the misconception regarding Zoroastrians:

"Do not say that they were fire worshipers. They were worshipers of the pure God."

Overall, I was truly impressed and moved by the Boudiccan rebellion and uprising against the West Roman Empire as well as The Good deed of the Samaritan that Lord Jesus mentioned.
Nevertheless, as the author mentions," Even if we do not vanish as have so many peoples before, within a few generations of change our descendants would regard us as distant as strangers."

April 9th, 2025
Iran, Tehran
Payervan. M

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. For a history book, this was surprisingly not nearly as dry as one might expect. The book was comprised of dozens of relatively short chapters on individual ancient peoples/societies. The author did a good job of keeping it engaging and would tie in “future echoes” at the end of each chapter to highlight how a given people still has lingering ties to today.

There was a surprising amount of crossover with the Bible, especially early on in the book. While at times he threw some shade at the Bible, he was overall not particularly antagonistic and was actually even friendly to it as a source at times. I enjoyed the additional perspective gained on the peoples doing life around the Israelites back then, plus the insights into what life was like. Audiobook narrator was excellent!

[Kevin]

One of the best most concise histories of the ancient world I've ever encountered. Matyszak strips away a lot of the complications and shadows of ancient peoples to explain clearly what is known about groups of people with sparse archives to explain historically vague origins and actions. This is the book you should read before you attempt to conquer larger more complicated reads on anything in the pre-medieval west. This book would be useful in a first-year general Western Civ or World civ course if you want to aid the survey of the ancient world and decenter lessons away from the Greeks & Romans.
The only weakness here is for an advanced reader of this time period, I suspect these vignettes would be a bit simplistic.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good survey of some of the forgotten peoples of the ancient world. It places them in context, discusses possible origins and what happened to them. It doesn't have an extensive bibliography, but does provide for some further reading.

Quite interesting and thought provoking when you consider the ephemeral nature of what consider a people or a nation. Surely, the citizens of Sargon The Great felt that they were permanent, but now they are vanished to the point that we don't even know where Akkad, their capitol was located. The first great empire is known only to a few historians.

[Koeneman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty decent read. This book got me some new information but I just think it could be so much more. For example; every tribe gets 2.5 pages maximum (a lot are less than that because of the many images in the book). For the tribes/people I didn’t know anything about everything was obviously new and informative but the ones I already knew off I only saw the basic information written out. So that makes me think it probably is also the same with the lesser known tribes/people. There aren’t really any in-depth information and/or details.

But overall it is not bad and it reads fine. So this book is a 3 star.

[diary.of.a.hobbit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting and informative read. I found the information to be easily absorbable and there were quite a lot of images such as maps, photos of relevant artefacts/archeological sites etc, and that greatly complimented the text and it made things easier to follow.

[Brenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

“this history of lost and forgotten peoples is a reminder that our tune and culture is ephemeral”

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to take a walk though history that is about the lesser known people in history.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating collection of ancient peoples that give insight into how we have gotten to where we are and where we might be heading.

[K. Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating but also infuriating because I can't go back in time and clear up all the "I don't knows."

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 2 out of 5]

En rätt enkel genomgång av mindre välkända antika folk. Inget djupare än vad som hittas i gamla historieböcker för barn.

[stephanie suh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forty years on our evolutionary scale amounts to a microsecond on our twenty-four biological clock. The millennium years, even Before Christ, feels so alienly anachronistic from our modern sensibility. The sense of time builds upon a fundamental element of consciousness as molded into a collective emotional experience as contemporary citizens of the world, just as the peoples of the misty pasts we tend to overlook felt the same for the civilizations before them. They were the titans of the pre-ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilizations, who, like the evening sun in its full declination, vanished in the hazy horizons of the time, still dazzling with its scarlet hues of radiating halo lingering on the remnants of human civilization to this date.

Forgotten peoples of the Ancient World is an anthology of the peoples whose feeling of permanence and importance in their time of the world betrayed their fates buried in the tires of cities beneath the earth and returned to the dust in the winds. To illustrate, Akkadians were the first builders of the empire who elevated the Akkadian language to the cultural and political lingua franca of the late Bronze Age. The Hyksos were outstanding charioteers, and their military prowess benefitted their Egyptian subjects. The Bactrian culture was a delightful mixture of Greek and Indian heritages, while the Vandals gave a final, fatal blow to the already destabilized Roman Empire. These peoples affected the celebrity civilizations we are automatically associated with the ancient civilizations. As to why the forgotten peoples became peripheral in our realm of ancient history, it is a question of the immanence of the supreme being in the universe. However, what is certain is that they were the torch-bearers of the first civilizations passing the torch of society they had ignited and encouraged to the next in a relay run of collective humanity.

The book is an excellent anthology of these ancient peoples in chronological order from east to west, showing how civilizations expanded from the cradle across the plains, mountains, deserts, and seas to the Isles of Britons. Divided into the eras marking the epochal changes of history, Matyszak succinctly elucidates the peoples of the misty past with his trademark witty ways of describing historical contexts. Moreover, the exciting historical trivia resurrects the eras in a phantasmagorical display of faces and places.

To conclude, the stories about the forgotten peoples attest to the objectivity of truth applicable to any time of history that that which is here was there, has been, and will be. All things must pass, and there is nothing new under the sun. Our sense of time and culture is a likeness of truth, a matrix-like reality, because our facility is rather instinctive than reasoning, rather physical than metaphysical. Who would have known that people 100 years later now would think our time and us in this time anachronistic and antediluvian? Herodotus felt the same when he arrived in Egypt and saw the wondrous pyramids in awe that the people before his generations had built. So did the Babylonian king, who dug and discovered artifacts from centuries ago. We have seen the hungry ocean gain advantage of the kingdom of the shore, and the firm soil win of the watery main, increase with loss and loss with increase. The forgotten peoples and we are time's subjects, and time bids are gone.

[Yi Lun · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm interested in ancient near eastern history so I picked this up to learn a bit more about some of the peoples whose names I had come across but didn't necessarily know. The book is separated into four main sections, each covering a certain epoch of time beginning with the world's first empire, the long forgotten Akkadian empire, to the various peoples roaming around Europe around the fall of the Western Roman empire. Although I was primarily interested in the first section covering Mesopotamian peoples, the contents were so interesting that I continued to read the other three.

The book covers around 40 or so peoples. There are some names which may be familiar to readers, especially those with a knowledge of the old testament and/or Egyptian and Roman history (the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Thracians and the Vandals for example); however, there are also several other peoples which I would consider to be truly forgotten (the Arverni, the Alamanni, the Hephthalites and the Sicels, to name a few). The author brings some life and clarity on these peoples and their role in history. The author is skilfully concise; he summarises the supposed origins (including a map), "golden era" and the ultimate fall of each peoples within 5-7 pages. He covers a lot of main facts, giving readers a sufficient overview without getting bogged down into too much detail. There are illustrations throughout, primarily of artefacts or paintings which depict an important event in the history of the peoples.

For anyone interested in the lesser known contributors to history, I would highly recommend this. The writing style flows well and is easy to read, making the contents accessible to all readers, no matter their knowledge of history.

[Kumail Akbar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short book has to be among the best if not the best history book I read this year. The idea behind it was simple – looking at ancient history not through the perspective of the major power players but by focusing on the minor powers, the tribes and cities and power brokers on the periphery. The author picks up a tribe or people, identifies their history, documents their culture and accomplishments and ends each chapter with how these forgotten or lost peoples connect with our modern world. You get the sweeping arcs of history with familiar names such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, Akkadians, but also (for me) somewhat less well known tribes such as the Hephthalites, or the Vandals.

I found both the concept extremely informative, the execution incredibly well done, and the writing lucid. There is no grand analysis, nor even a broad narrative arc, simply a supplement to general ancient history which overlooks many of these peoples except when they interact with the major empires. Overall, a thoroughly informative and enjoyable read. My only issue with the book might be a somewhat less than adequate focus on Central Asia – which I somewhat found mildly surprising in hindsight – though to be fair, I too know very little about the ancient history of this region and so this comment should be taken with a bit of salt. Regardless, a very highly recommended read for everyone.

Rating: 5 of 5