The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus gives the Syriac text with English translation of the political history of the world from the creation to the year AD 1286. Compiled by the thirteenth-century polymath Gregory Bar Hebaraeus, this chronography contains lists of Hebrew patriarchs and kings of the Hebrews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Greeks, followed by Muslim Khalifs and Khans, up to the lifetime of the author. It is in reality a chronological and historical encyclopedia, into which an enormous amount of information of various kinds has been crammed. He deals with histories, religions, languages, the manners and customs of peoples; he adds biographies of great warriors and physicians; he describes battles and sieges, and the capture of cities; he talks of the coming of comets and extraordinary appearances in the heavens, earthquakes, famines, falls of snow, and the freezing over of the Tigris and Euphrates; he also reports court scandals, and repeats gossip of all kinds, and tells "laughable stories". Some of his remarks on portents, derived from the appearances of the sun and other heavenly bodies, will remind the reader of passages in Old Morre's Almanack.

Gregory Bar Hebraeus (1226-1286), known in Syriac as Bar `Ebroyo, was a polymath whose writings cover a great diversity of subjects: theology, history, liturgy, medicine, philosophy, logic, mathematics, grammar, poetry, and even a book of jokes. At the age of twenty, he was ordained Syriac Orthodox bishop and later became Maphrian of the East in 1264.

E. A. Wallis Budge (1857-1934) was Curator of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum from 1894 to 1924. He is known for publishing texts, with English translations, from Coptic, Greek, Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopian, and Egyptian manuscripts. Budge was knighted in 1920. He died November 23, 1934 in London.

• List of plates [Vol I]
• Introduction [Vol I]
• The Author's Preface [Vol I]
• The Patriarches. From Adam to Moses [Vol I]
• The Judges. From Joshua to Samuel [Vol I]
• The Kings of the Hebrews [Vol I]
• The Chaldean Kings [Vol I]
• The Kings of the Medes [Vol I]
• The Kings of the Persians [Vol I]
• The Pagan Greeks (Yawnaye) [Vol I]
• The Roman Emperors [Vol I]
• The Second Kingdom of the Greeks [Vol I]
• The Kings of the Arabs [Vol I]
• The Kings ofthe Huns [Vol I]
• Note by the Editor [Vol II]
• Description of the Bodleian manuscript hunt No. 52 [Vol II]
• Robert Huntingdon and his work at Aleppo [Vol II]
• Appendix (English Translations) [Vol II]
• Syriac Texts The Makhtebhanuth Zabhne, or Chronography of Bar Herbraeus [Vol II]
• The Author's Preface [Vol II]
• The History of the Hebrew Patriarchs [Vol II]
• The History of the Judges [Vol II]
• The History of the Kings of the Hebrews [Vol II]
• The History of the Kings of the Chaldeans [Vol II]
• The History of the Kings of the Medes [Vol II]
• The History of the Kings of the Persians [Vol II]
• The History of the Pagan Greeks [Vol II]
• The History of the Roman Emperors [Vol II]
• The History of the Greeks [Vol II]
• The History of the Kingdom of the arabs [Vol II]
• The History of the Mongols (Huns) [Vol II]