History of the Ancient Chaldea surveys southern Mesopotamia from Sumerian city-states to the Neo-Babylonian age. Rawlinson blends cuneiform evidence-tablets, cylinder seals, brick inscriptions-with Herodotus and Berossus, charting Ur and Uruk, Sargon of Akkad, Hammurabi, and Nebuchadnezzar II, alongside religion, astronomy, law, and Gulf commerce. In measured Victorian prose with ample apparatus, it exemplifies early, synthetic Assyriology. George Rawlinson (1812-1902), Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford and an Anglican cleric, wrote amid the first wave of cuneiform decipherment. A collaborator and brother of Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, he drew on British Museum holdings, his Herodotus scholarship, and The Five Great Monarchies to reconcile epigraphic, classical, and biblical testimonies in a coherent narrative. Scholars of the ancient Near East, classicists, and readers of biblical backgrounds will find this volume indispensable as both synthesis and historiographical landmark. Some Victorian categories now date it, yet its clarity, source-awareness, and breadth make it rewarding for coursework, research libraries, and anyone tracing how knowledge of Chaldea-and Babylonia broadly-was first assembled.
Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the author's voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readable-distilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.