Excerpt from A Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities: With Thirty-Four Plates In this Guide are described the great collections of Babylonian and Assyrian antiquities now in the British Museum. These collections cover a period of about five thousand years, ranging from about B.C. 4500 to A.D. 500. In them are comprised by far the largest portion of available material for reconstructing the history of Western Asia inscribed in the cuneiform character. The collections consist of sculptures and bas-reliefs, and inscribed monuments, boundary-stones, gate-sockets, and bricks inscribed with the names and titles of the kings who made them; baked clay cylinders and tablets inscribed with records of the history and of the religious, commercial, and domestic life of the Babylonians and Assyrians; and numerous miscellaneous objects belonging to the later periods of the Persian, Greek, Parthian, Roman, and Sassanian periods of occupation in Mesopotamia. During recent years the exhibition of these antiquities has been entirely reorganized, and the objects have been classified, and grouped, and arranged as nearly as possible in chronological order. Every effort has been made to impart information in a concise form in the labels attached to the several objects. Mr. L. W. King, M.A., Assistant in the Department, has ably assisted me in the preparation of this Guide. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.