The links between archaeology and the Bible have fascinated generations of archaeologists and biblical scholars who seek documentation of events narrated in the Bible. The British Museum's collections include numerous inscribed objects, scripts and pictorial reliefs which provide such evidence. There is, for example, a Babylonian clay tablet which records Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem in 597BC.

For this book the author has selected sixty such 'documents', mainly from Western Asia, with some examples included from Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor, dating from the period of the Patriarchs to the New Testament times, c. 2000BC to c. AD100. He transliterates and translates the ancient texts, which include Cuneiform, Aramaic and Hebrew, and discusses the contribution they make to our knowledge of the culture and history of biblical times. Each object is illustrated in black and white.

Biblical Archaeology: Documents from the British Museum will be a valuable source-book for all students of the Bible and the ancient Near East.

T.C. Mitchell is Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities, British Museum.

With over 65 black-and-white illustrations