Marduk against the dragon of chaos, the descent of Ishtar, Gilgamesh and the flood - the Mesopotamian material as the cuneiform tablets were giving it up. Mackenzie wrote for readers meeting a civilisation that had been entirely lost until within living memory. This edition is bound with sixteen plates of painting, among them works by Degas and Phoenician and Nimrud artists, and twenty-nine illustrations restored and coloured for this volume.