Contents : 1. The land and its rivers -- The two regions -- The coastline -- The rivers -- Climate and irrigation -- Salinization -- Northern Iraq; 2. The twilight of Neolithic man -- The Old Stone Age -- Garrod and Solecki -- American excavators in Kurdistan -- The state of Neolithic research -- Jordan and the Levant; Anatolia; Iran -- The Iraq-Jarmo project; 3. The threshold of written history -- The sequence of discoveries -- Al'Ubaid; Warka; Eridu; Khafaje -- The 'Ubaid period -- Architecture; religion; pottery and small objects; the cemetery -- The Uruk period -- Warka; the Anu area; the Eanna precinct; Tell 'Uqair -- Buildings of the Jemdet Nasr Period -- Warka; Khafaje -- The protoliterate period -- The first writing; sculpture; cylinder-seals; pottery -- Sumerian antecedents; 4. Illiterate peoples of Northern Mesopotamia -- Excavations in the north -- Arpachiyah; Tepe Gawra; Kuyunjik; Hassuna; other Hassuna sites; Samarra and Sawwan -- Architecture -- The pre-Halaf period; the Samarra period; the Halaf period; the 'Ubaid period; the 'Gawra' period; Tell Brak -- Pottery -- Pre-Halaf; Tell Halaf; Northern 'Ubaid; post-Ubaid -- Burials -- the 'Gawra' period -- Small objects -- figurines; seals -- Foreign relations -- Susiana; 5. The early Sumerian dynasties -- The king-list -- The earliest written texts -- Archaeological phases -- The 'flood' -- Early dynastic sites -- Khafaje; Tell Asmar; Tell Agrab; Ur-of-the-Chaldees; Al 'Ubaid; Kish; Lagash; Nippur; Ashur and Mari; Sihuaira -- Variants in terminology; 6. Pre-Sargonid art and architecture -- Sculpture -- statues; relief carving -- Architecture -- building methods; temples; palaces -- Cylinder-seals -- Metallurgy and composite craftsmanship -- inlaid ornament; composite objects -- Pottery; 7. The dynasty of Akkad and the Sumerian revival -- Semites in Mesopotamia -- Sargon and his successors -- Archaeology -- buildings; Tel Asmar; Khafaje and Brak; sculpture; cylinder-seals; Gasur -- Gutians and Lagash -- De Sarzec; Telloh; Gudea; Al-Hiba -- The third dynasty of Ur -- Buildings at Ur; the Ziggurat; the terrace; the mausoleum; temples and sculpture; 8. The 2nd millennium BC -- Conflicting states -- Buildings of the Isin-Larsa period -- Private houses -- The palace at Mari -- Mural paintings -- Tell Rimah -- Sculpture -- The Kassites -- Mitanni (Nuzi) -- The middle Assyrian period -- City of Ashur; fortifications; temples and palaces; some finds at Ashur; building practices; 9. The late Assyrian period -- Imperial history -- Early excavations in Assyrian cities -- Nimrud (Kalhu) -- Khorsabad -- Nineveh -- American excavations at Khorsabad -- Building construction -- Late Assyrian sculpture -- British return to Nimrud -- The Nimrud ivories; 10. Babylon: The last Mesopotamian monarchy -- A dynastic revival -- The German excavation -- The city -- Buildings -- Postscript.