The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2: Assyria: The History, Geography, and Antiquities of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, and Sassanian or New Persian Empire; with Maps and Illustrations.

In the mid-19th century, the Assyrian Empire was essentially unknown to the modern world, a vanished superpower mentioned only in scattered Biblical passages. Then came the dramatic dig at Nineveh, the unearthing of winged bulls and endless libraries of cuneiform tablets. George Rawlinson, who had helped crack the code of Persian cuneiform, witnessed this moment of resurrection firsthand. This volume, published in 1880, captures the electricity of reconstructing a lost civilization from its ruins and inscriptions. But Rawlinson's ambition stretches further than any single empire. He maps the entire ancient Near East across seven great monarchies: Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, and the Sassanian Empire. The geography here is not mere backdrop but active force - mountain barriers and river systems that shaped where empires rose and how they expanded. The maps and illustrations (rendered in that distinctive Victorian style of meticulous Line and stipple) offer windows into cities and monuments that were, in Rawlinson's time, still being newly pulled from the sand. This is Victorian Assyriology at its founding moment, a snapshot of scholars piecing together the fragments of empires that had been lost for millennia.