This book is a treatise of Assyriology, intended to be read by a general audience, written by Archibald Henry Sayce, who was a pioneer British Assyriologist and linguist. Assyriology is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and northwestern and southwestern Iran) and of the related cultures that used cuneiform writing.