This volume recounts the adventures of a group of rather uncoventional people who excavated the great cities and palaces of the Ancient Near East. Charting the early discoveries, this archaeogical adventure is told in a series of close portraits of those involved. From the dramatic discoveries of colossal palaces, through to the triumphant decipherment of cuneiform, the opium smoking Botta and the restless romantic Layard were the principal characters. However, this volume also takes a look at the lesser known figures such as the learned soldier Colonel Rawlinson, the would-be Englishman and...

The ancient Anatolian city of Kanesh (present-day Kultepe, Turkey) was a continuously inhabited site from the early Bronze Age through Roman times. The city flourished ca. 2000-1750 BCE as an Old Assyrian trade outpost and the earliest attested commercial society in world history. More than 23,000 elaborate clay tablets from private merchant houses provide a detailed description of a system of long-distance trade that reached from central Asia to the Black Sea region and the Aegean. The texts record common activities such as trade between Kanesh and the city state of Assur and between...

The Conquest of Assyria tells what must surely be one of the most romantic tales of archaeological endeavour. The great cities and ancient palaces of Mesopotamia had lain buried for over two millenia, and were all but forgotten, half remembered in the Hebrew Bible and Classical texts. This volume records the dramatic finds, the decipherment of the cuneiform system of writing and the rediscovery of a lost civilisation.

This book presents a detailed description of the political, cultural, and economic world of ancient Kanesh (present-day Kultepe, Turkey).