In April of 2003, the world watched in shock as news broadcasts reported on the break in and the looting of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad. Priceless antiquities, spanning ten thousand years of human history, were torn out from their glass cases, statues were thrown to the floor and smashed, and remains of temples and royal palaces were broken into pieces. The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad is a reconstruction in book form of one of the world's largest and most important museums, which will never be the same again. Focusing on the objects housed at the museum and collected over decades of painstaking archaeological research and study, the book traces the rich tapestry of the history of ancient Mesopotamia from its earliest prehistory to the advent of Islam. Iraq is a country of firsts: the earliest villages, cities, writing, poetry, epic literature, temples, codified religion, armies, warfare, world economy and empire. The archaeological artefacts that were looted represent our collective history and help us understand how our civilizations first began and then evolved. The looting of archaeological sites continues to this day, and has spawned a large illicit trade in stolen artefacts. Told through the art, artefacts, and writings that were lost recently in Iraq, this fascinating history of the civilizations of the Near East is sure to be a timeless and enduring book.