The thriteen-book series includes over 1200 illustrations. This volume covers: The Close of the Theban Empire (continued), The Rise of the Assyrian Empire, and The Hebrews and the Philistines — Damascus. According to Wikipedia: «Gaston Camille Charles Maspero (June 23, 1846 — June 30, 1916) was a French Egyptologist… Among his best-known publications are the large Histoire ancienne des peuples de l'Orient classique (3 vols., Paris, 1895–1897, translated into English by Mrs McClure for the S.P.C.K.), displaying the history of the whole of the nearer East from the beginnings to the conquest by Alexander…»