Doubleday Anchor Books
Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Garden City, New York
Henri Frankfort was born in 1897 in Holland. He first studied history at
Amsterdam University, obtained his M.A. in London, but returned to the
University of Leiden for his Ph.D. He has done extensive field work in
the Near East, his main project being the Oriental Institute of
Chicago’s excavations in Iraq from 1929 to 1937. Dr. Frankfort both
organized and headed these excavations, which yielded much new
information on the early history of Babylonia, from 4000 to 2000 B.C. In
1938 Dr. Frankfort went to Chicago to write and to teach at the
University of Chicago, which had appointed him Research Professor of
Oriental Archaeology in 1932. In 1949 he was appointed Director of the
Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of Pre-classical
Antiquity in the University of London. Among his other writings are
numerous contributions to professional journals and a book, _Ancient
Egyptian Religion_ (1948). Dr. Frankfort died in 1954.
Cover design by Antonio Frasconi
Typography by Edward Gorey
_The Birth of Civilization in the Near East_ was published by Indiana
University Press in 1951. The Anchor Books edition is published by
arrangement with Indiana University Press.