Thanks to a great tradition of study and research, we are in this country extremely fortunate to have been able to assemble over the years, and thereby preserve in the British Museum a remarkable number of items from various sources throwing a direct light on the historical events mirrored in the pages of the Hebrew Bible. They are, of course, only a portion of all the material of this kind which exists, much being found in museums in other countries, which the student of the subject will find described elsewhere. In this book we attempt to relate the selection of material more or less to particular historical events. The relation has not been absolutely strict. Such matters of selection are inevitably difficult, and in the last resort, depend on professional preferences. [From the Foreword]