Nineveh and Its Remains

Austen Henry Layard rediscovered the remains of the Assyrian civilization, in present-day Iraq, in the vicinity of Mosul.
Nineveh and Its Remains is his chronicle of his adventures in the Middle East in the 1840s. Fascinating shit, especially his accounts of the Yezidi, Chaldeans and Kurds.
excerpt:

'Yakoub Rais, who was naturally of a lively and joyful disposition, could not restrain his tears as he related to me the particulars of the massacre. He had been among the first seized by Beder Khan Bey; and having been kept by that chief as a kind of hostage, he had been continually with him, during the attack on the Tiyari, and had witnessed all the scenes of bloodshed which is so graphically described. The descent upon Asheetha was sudden and unexpected. The greater part of the inhabitants fell victims to the fury of the Kurds, who endeavored to destroy every trace of the village. We walked to the church, which had been newly constructed by the united exertions and labor of the people. The door was so low, that a person, on entering, had to bring his back to the level of his knees. The entrances to Christian churches in the East are generally so constructed, that horses and beasts of burden may not be lodged by Mohammedans within the sacred building. A few rituals, a book of prayer, and the Scriptures, all in manuscript, were lying upon the rude altar; but the greater part of the leaves were wanting, and those which remained were either torn into shreds, or disfigured by damp and water. The manuscripts of the churches were hid in the mountains, or buried in some secure place, at the time of the massacre; and as the priests, who had concealed them, were mostly killed, the books have not been recovered. A few English prints and handkerchiefs from Manchester were hung about the walls; a bottle and a glass, with a tin plate for the sacrament, stood upon the table; a curtain of coarse cloth hung before the inner recess, the Holy of Holies; and these were all the ornaments and furniture of the place.'

-Austen Henry Layard 1854