Narrative of a Journey to the Site of Babylon in 1811... Edited by His Widow

Claudius Rich was the British East India Company Resident in Baghdad from 1808 until his death in 1821. During his time in Iraq he conducted important surveys of the sites of Nineveh and Babylon, describing the remains he saw on the ground in detail and in relation to the ancient Greek and Latin sources. In the years after his death, his wife Mary organized and arranged the sale of his collections of manuscripts and antiquities to the British Museum, and edited volumes of his work for publication. This book combines Claudius Rich’s First and Second Memoirs on the Ruins of Babylon with related material, including the critique of another historical geographer, James Rennell, that led Rich to write the second memoir. Mary Rich herself wrote an extensive historical introduction discussing the biblical and classical accounts of the site as well as those of earlier travelers. The First Memoir also includes a detailed plan of the site of Babylon produced for Rich by Captain Abraham Lockett, an East India Company soldier also stationed at Baghdad who shared Rich’s interest in Iraq’s ancient sites.