The Art of the Middle East: Including Persia, Mesopotamia and Palestine

Beautifully illustrated, including 60 hand-tipped plates in full colour.

Sir Leonard Woolley, the renowned archaeologist and author of numerous books (Excavations at Ur, The Development of Sumerian Art, A Forgotten Kingdom), spent a lifetime in studying and excavating the treasures of the Middle East. This last book by Sir Leonard – who died shortly after completing it – covers not only the art of Mesopotamia but includes the countries later known as Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Blam (which is part of Persia), together with the whole of the Arabian peninsula.

Sir Leonard has produced a most comprehensive survey of the art and history of this vast area, with its different and constantly changing populations, from the earliest times to 500 AD. The colour plates he has selected illustrate his text superbly. Among the illustrations even the most remote times and least-known regions are represented. There are beautiful examples of the al-‘Ubaid and Susa pottery; of the astonishing architecture of Ur, much of which was found by Sir Leonard himself; of sculpture, painting, metalwork, and the famous cylinder seals.
The book is divided into nine chapters: the first provides a general outline of the geography, history, and peoples of the Middle East as a whole; each of the following chapters deals with the art and civilisation of a cultural unit, such a Sumer and Akkad, or Graeco-Roman art in the Middle East.