Percy S. P. (Percy Stuart Peache) Handcock

Percy Stuart Peache Handcock was a British author and scholar whose work focused on the archaeology, history, and literature of the ancient Near East. Writing in the early 1900s, he produced books that introduced general readers to Mesopotamia, biblical lands, and important ancient texts.

His best-known works include Mesopotamian Archaeology: An Introduction to the Archaeology of Babylonia and Assyria, The Archæology of the Holy Land, and editions or translations connected with sources such as the Tell el-Amarna letters, Babylonian flood stories, and the Code of Hammurabi. His writing reflects a period when archaeology was rapidly reshaping how people understood the ancient world.

Available sources also identify Handcock as having worked with the British Museum, and he is remembered today mainly through his published studies and translations rather than through a large surviving personal record. He died in 1927, but his books remain of interest to readers curious about the early popular study of the ancient Middle East.