THE LIFE OF THE ANCIENT EAST

New York: The Macmillan Company. Very Good. 1923. Hardcover. A near-fine copy of Baikie's 1923 book in its first American edition. THE LIFE OF THE ANCIENT EAST Being some Chapters of the Romance of Modern Excavation. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1923. 463 pages, 32 plates, folding sketch map.In original brown cloth, a nice bright, tight copy, no dust jacket. Attractive bookplate of William Allan Osborn. "The sites chosen for study have not been chosen at random. ... Babylon has its place, not only for its ancient greatness but because of its venerable system of law, revealed by the discovery of the Code of Hammurabi; Abydos, not only because it was the chief seat of that form of faith which expressed the Eyptian's invincible yearning for immortality, but also because its excavation has given back to us the centuries which went before the dawn of History in Egypt; and Gezer, because its very obscurity has enabled it to preserve for us, almost unbroken, the evidence of the strange sequence of races which strove for dominion in the most interesting land on earth. ... The illustrations have been chosen with the view of exhibiting, on the one hand, some of the most notable buildings on the sites dealt with, and, on the other, some of the most interesting finds which have resulted from excavation."A fascinating book for either chair-bound amateur or field-hardened expert. .