Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia
Including a Residence among the Bakhtiyari and Other Wild Tribes before the Discovery of Nineveh

A remarkable travel narrative, published in 1887, describing cities, antiquities and lawless tribal regions of Persia in the 1840s.

Austen Henry Layard (Author)

9781108043434, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 December 2011

534 pages, 2 b/w illus. 1 map
21.6 x 14 x 3 cm, 0.67 kg

Sir Austen Henry Layard (1817–94) was one of the leading British archaeologists of the Victorian period. His excavations at Nimrud and Nineveh led to important discoveries about ancient Mesopotamia, particularly about the Assyrian civilisation, and his popular books such as Nineveh and its Remains (1849) brought archaeology to a wide audience. This book, first published in 1887, tells the story of an 'adventurous journey' Layard had made over forty years earlier, in 1840–2. He learnt Arabic and Persian and travelled widely, even among tribal peoples notorious for their lawlessness. Volume 2 opens with Layard's account of attacks by the Persian military against his hosts, the mountain-dwelling Bakhtiyari tribe. It describes Layard's return journey through Basra and Baghdad to Constantinople, against a backdrop of civil unrest, feuds, kidnapping, theft and robbery, alternating with generous assistance. The book ends with Layard, undeterred by his experiences, planning his next archaeological excavations.

11. Arrival of the Matamet
12. Mehemet Taki Khan leaves the mountains
13. Discover a Bakhtiyari
14. Interview with the Matamet
15. Basra
16. Leave Baghdad for Khuzistan
17. Seyyid Abou'l-Hassan
18. Renounce journey to India
19. Arrive at Constantinople
20. Reshid Pasha
Appendix
Index.

Subject Areas: Archaeology by period / region [HDD]