UR EXCAVATIONS, Volume II: THE ROYAL CEMETERY (in 2 parts)

Oxford and Philadelphia: Trustees of the British Museum and The Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, 1934. Part 1 (Text): xx, 604 pages + color frontispiece and 3 folding plates; Part 2 (Plates): xiii pages + color frontispiece and 274 plates (4 folding and 35 in full color). First printing of the first edition. Bound in the original stiff paper covers. First printing of the first edition. During the period 1925-1931 the British Museum and the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania sponsored a joint archaeological expedition to the site of Ur, thought to be the capital of ancient Mesopotamia. Archaeologist C. Leonard Woolley was in charge of the expedition. Their most prominent discoveries were in graves in what was apparently the royal cemetery in Ur. The 2 books offered here constitute the official report of their excavations in the royal cemetery. Note: Wooley gives full credit for much of the work in the cemetery during 1929-1930 to his primary assistant, a young British archaeologist named Max Mallowan. It was during that year that the Ur archaeological site was visited by British mystery writer Agatha Christie. There she met Mallowan; they were married in September 1930, and Max and Lady Mallowan remained married until her death in 1976. The 2 books are in about very good condition: internally clean and tight, with minor light soiling of the paper covers; minor chipping of paper on the spines; a couple of small chips on edges of rear cover on the text volume; relatively minor line of staining on rear cover of the plates volumes.. First Edition. Paperback. Very Good. Folio - over 12" - 15" tall. Book.