Mesopotamian Archaeology: An Introduction to the Archaeology of Mesopotamia and Assyria

Long before modern techniques and digital tools transformed archaeology, a generation of scholars labored to piece together the ruins of the world's earliest civilizations. Percy S.P. Handcock wrote this introduction in 1912, when the decipherment of cuneiform was barely fifty years old and the great Assyrian palaces at Nineveh and Khorsabad had only recently emerged from the sand. This book captures that extraordinary moment when the bricks of Babylon and the winged bulls of Nimrud were still fresh revelations, and the scholars writing about them could feel the thrill of discovery in every chapter. Handcock surveys the geography of the Mesopotamian valley, traces the rise of Babylonians and Assyrians, examines their languages and writing systems, and describes the architectural and artistic achievements that have shaped our understanding of the ancient Near East. Though nearly a century and a half of additional excavation and scholarship has followed, this remains a valuable window into the foundations of Assyriology. Students of ancient history will find here not only the facts that early archaeologists established, but the intellectual passion of men who read the first cuneiform tablets and stood amazed at what the earth had kept hidden.