The Pocket Timeline of Ancient Mesopotamia is a beautifully illustrated guide to this region's rich and fascinating history, from its first nomadic inhabitants to the fall of the Neo-Babylonian empire. The lively and engaging 32-page book is divided into sections that cover a different period or civilization that sprang up between the Euphrates and the Tigris, each section containing short but satisfying chapters on such diverse topics as farming, writing, religion, and arts and crafts. The book describes the nomadic lifestyle of the area's first settlers, and their transformation into farmers and then city-dwellers, such as the growth of Ur in southern Mesopotamia from a village in 2500 BC to a city of around 20,000 people by 4500 BC.
We see how the Mesopotamians developed writing and math, the establishment and fall of an empire at Babylon, and the restoration of a Neo-Babylonian empire with a palace so grand that King Nebuchadnezzar called it "the marvel of all people, the center of the land, the shining residence, the dwelling of majesty."
The book is beautifully illustrated with dozens of color photos of ancient sites and artifacts; readers will see ancient idols, an board game known as the Royal Game of Ur, a ferocious feline guard from the temple of Ishtar from 665 BC, and statues, seals, musical instruments, maps, and monuments.
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