Page "British Museum" Paragraph 143

Although the collections centre on Mesopotamia most of the surrounding areas are well represented.

The Achaemenid collection was enhanced with the addition of the Oxus Treasure in 1897, by acquisition from the German scholar Ernst Herzfeld, and then by the work of Sir Aurel Stein.

From Palmyra there is a large collection of nearly forty funerary busts, acquired in the 19th century.

A group of stone reliefs from the excavations of Max von Oppenheim at Tell Halaf, purchased in 1920.

More excavated material from the excavations of Max Mallowan at Chagar Bazar and Tell Brak in 1935 – 1938, and from Woolley at Alalakh in the years just before and after the Second World War.

The collection of Palestinian material was strengthened with the acquisition in 1980 of around 17, 000 objects found at Lachish by the Wellcome-Marston expedition of 1932 – 1938.