Sidestone Projects
Not every book is just a book. Sidestone Projects deals with some extraordinary book projects. We work, for example, on several projects involving the the re-creation and republishing of old, out of press, academic books. Original copies of such books can be very rare and extremely expensive. Sidestone produces facsimile editions of these books.
We are constantly looking for new interesting proposals for Sidestone Projects. The main aim is making information available that is now either not, or no longer, available. All our current projects deal with Dutch publications, however if you have a suggestion for a new Sidestone Project we would love to hear about it!
Quadrant: making archaeology public
Spring 2009 the plan emerged to start Quadrant, a new series of archaeological books aimed at the general public. Sidestone Press will be the publisher of these books whereas TGV will take care of their contents. One of the people behind TGV is Evert van Ginkel, a well-known author of various Dutch archaeology books.
The first volumes of Quadrant were dedicated to barrow research and excavations in the Central Netherlands and a newly discovered Iron Age chiefly grave in Oss.
For further reading (in Dutch) please visit our Quadrant page.
Prehistoric 'haardsteden' in Hilversum?
In 1856 L.J.F. Jansen, curator of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, published the book ‘Hilversumsche Oudheden’. It will not be surprising that the book is not entirely up-to-date anymore, in fact the central observations in the book turned out to be forgeries. Despite of this, Hilversumse Oudheden is still interesting from a historical perspective.
Janssen published his book on Hilversum just after his discovery of stone built chambers he called haardsteden. These were interpreted as settlement-traces of the builders of megaliths. Janssen concluded that the haardsteden were of Roman age and, consequently, that the three-age system could not be maintained. This led to substantial international attention. The German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann observed Janssen’s finds when visiting Leiden. He regarded them as a confirmation of his own doubts about the three-age system that arose during the excavations of Troy.
The book gives a unique perspective on the early days of archaeology as a scientific discipline. It is illustrated with brilliant colour illustrations on foldable pages.
About Giants and White Witches...
Johan Picardt’s Korte Beschryvinge van eenige Vergetene en Verborgene ANTIQUITETEN
In 1660 Johan Picardt wrote the first book on the (pre)history of the Northern Netherlands. He was the first to deal extensively with things like the prehistoric burial mounds and megalithic tombs. These, according to Picardt, were inhabited by witches and built by giants respectively. In April 2008 Sidestone presented a facsimile edition of this book including the famous copperplate illustrations.
More information and illustrations are available in Dutch.
