At the beginning of the nineteenth century, little was known of the ancient Near East except for what was preserved in the Bible and Classical literature. By the end of that century, an amazing transformation had occurred: the basic outline of ancient Near Eastern history was now understood and the material culture of the region was recognizable to the general public. This three-volume study explores the various ways by which non-specialists would have encountered ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Holy Land and how they derived and constructed meaning from those discoveries. McGeough...

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, little was known of the ancient Near East except for what was preserved in the Bi-ble and classical literature. By the end of the nineteenth cen-tury, an amazing transformation had occurred: the basic out-line of ancient Near Eastern history was understood and the mate-rial culture of the region was recognizable to the general pub-lic. This three-volume study explores the various ways that non-specialists would have encountered ancient Egypt, Mesopota-mia, and the Holy Land and how they derived and con-structed meaning from those discoveries....

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, little was known of the ancient Near East except for what was preserved in the Bible and classical literature. By the end of the nineteenth century, an amazing transformation had occurred: the basic outline of ancient Near Eastern history was understood and the material culture of the region was recognizable to the general public. This three-volume study explores the various ways that non-specialists would have encountered ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Holy Land and how they derived and constructed meaning from those discoveries. McGeough...