Expert: Irulan Serena - 10/28/2005

Question
Hi.  Thanks for taking the time to read this.

I am embarking on a probably too ambitious self directed course of study in (among other things) ancient cultures.  I feel I ought to have gotten a better education in this respect, and I want to remedy the situation.  

I want to get a fairly comprehensive understanding in all ancient cultures including history, mythology, philosophy/religous views and literature, from pre-history until say the fall of Rome.  

What I need is recommendations for comprehensive, credible, well regarded resources.  Of course this could be a life's work but I plan on devoting around 1500 to 2000 hours to this part of the project (around 3 years I'm guessing).  For what its worth, I have a BA in philosophy (with emphasis on comparative religions) and a law dgree and am a practicing attorney.    

Obviously, I don't need a complete syllubus, but if you you recommend some well regarded resources to get me started, I'd be very grateful.  I figure with a project of this magnitude I'll have to build in a certain amount of flexibility to develop lines of inquiry that particularly spark my interest.  

My inclination would be to start with an overview and then get into more detail with respect to particular cultures going more or less chronologically (I'm guessing Egypt would probably be first).

Again, thanks very much for your time.

Answer
Hello ,



Fla has been visited by a rather nasty hurricane ...power is very limiterd so cannot devote the time I would like to spend on answering your question, however as soon as things calm down and power returns full blast will do research to answer your question.


Regards,

Iru