The strange story of the Assyrian Reliefs in the Metropolitan Museum and the Hidden Masterpiece at Canford School. This volume includes previously unpublished photographs, illustrations from rare nineteenth century sources, and passages from the diary of Lady Charlotte Guest (cousin of Austen Henry Layard).

This large handsome volume, carefully reproduced from the original edition of 1849-53 and bound in deluxe Verona cloth, contains 170 drawings made by Layard of sculptures, bas-reliefs, and other objects discovered by him among the ruins of Nineveh.

Best known today from biblical accounts of his exploits and ignominious end, the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.) was once the ruler of all western Asia. In his capital at Nineveh, in what is now northern Iraq, he built what he called the "Palace without Rival." Though only scattered traces of this magnificent structure are visible today, contemporary written descriptions and surviving wall reliefs permit a remarkably detailed reconstruction of the appearance and significance of the palace. An art historian trained in ancient Near East philology, archaeology, and history, John Malcolm Russell marshals these resources to investigate the meaning and political function of the palace of Sennacherib. He contends that the meaning of the monument cannot be found in images or texts alone; nor can these be divorced from architectural context. Thus his study combines discussions of the context of inscriptions in Sennacherib's palace with reconstructions of its physical appearance and analyses of the principles by which the subjects of Sennacherib's reliefs were organized to express meaning. Many of the illustrations are published here for the first time, notably drawings of palace reliefs made by nineteenth-century excavators and photographs taken in the course of the author's own excavations at Nineveh.

From the subjects of adoption to Zoroastrianism, this encyclopedia treats readers to numerous entries on the life and times of ancient Mesopotamia. Readers will learn important terms, read biographies of central figures, and analyze brief narratives of pivotal events that transformed Mesopotamia.