Austen Henry Layard was perhaps the leading British archaeologist of the nineteenth century. His excavations at Calah (Nimrud) and elsewhere provided crucial evidence of both the antiquity and the cultural achievement of ancient Mesopotamian, particularly Assyrian, civilization. As befitted a Victorian gentleman, however, Layard was not a professional archaeologist, nor did he restrict his intellectual activities to archaeology. He wore many hats in his public career--as a diplomat, a politician, an art connoisseur, and a man of letters. Through two memorable travelogues of his excavations at the Assyrian capital of Nineveh he presents his archaeological activities to readers in narrated forms. Lending a new depth to his readers' awareness of their collective past, Layard's writings chronicle the exhilarating discovery of a layer of civilization that antedates biblical and classical ones. His works also raise questions of cultural imperialism and epistemology central to modern critical debates.

Layard was the...