Joan Oates

An excellent set of five books with fine illustrations. Sound scholarship concerning these ancient cities, while in some cases not completely up to the minute, these are still landmark texts about these ancient locations. Also some new information is added via prefaces and introductions.

May all the great cities of civilization have as comprehensive and readable of a biography written for each of them. Babylon certainly deserves this one.

In a highly acclaimed account, now brought up to date for the revised edition, Dr. Oates describes the rise of Babylon from Sargon of Agade to Hammurapi, the great law-giver under whom in the 18th century BC the city first attained pre-eminence. She charts its progress under his successors, its greatest period of empire during the reigns of Nebuchadrezzar and Nabonidus in the 6th century BC, and its decay and final abandonment as Persians and Greeks...