In the "Palace without Rival" at Nineveh, ancient Assyrian King Sennacherib immortalized his 701 B.C. campaign against Jerusalem with a series of spectacular wall relief sculptures. Amazingly, when the palace was rediscovered twenty-five centuries later in 1847, the sculpture in the throne room areas remained largely intact. But today, air pollution, animal damage, vandalism, neglect, and -- worst of all -- looting for the international antiquities market by Iraq's own sanctions-stricken people, have brought ruin to the palace. The splendor of Sennacherib's palace now survives only in this irreplaceable book. Art historian and archaeologist John Malcolm Russell, who in 1989 set about creating the only extensive photographic record of rbc palace architecture, sculptures, and inscriptions ever made, has preserved in pictures much that has since been lost. This book presents for the first time Russell's own photographs, along with new drawings of many of the throne room sculptures, old excavation photos, views of the architectural setting, photographs of unpublished inscriptions, and more. Russell explains the unique and important aspects of the sculptures, documents their progressive deterioration, and examines the various causes. He proposes standards in archaeological excavation, documentation, and public policy that will help preserve cultural artifacts in an unstable world.