Tessa Blackstone has called for interested parties to come forward

The 19th Century diaries of Claudius James Rich were prohibited from overseas sale on Wednesday.

In a statement, she said the temporary banning order was "a last chance to raise the money to keep the material in the United Kingdom".

The diaries are currently in British hands.

Rich worked as an academic for the East India Company, based in Baghdad, between 1808 and 1821.

He wrote diaries on his travels from Baghdad to Vienna in 1813, and from Geneva to Baghdad in 1815.

It was on the latter trip that he found the ruins of Nineveh, in what is now north-eastern Iraq.

Baroness Blackstone has called for anyone interested in buying the diaries to come forward before the ban ends on 16 June.

The diaries have been valued at �61,575, and are said to show the religious structure of Iraq in the 19th Century.

Famous account

A larger collection of Rich's diaries is held at the British Museum.

His most famous works were details of the ruins of Babylon, published in 1815 and 1818.

He visited the ruins for 10 days in 1811. His account became so famous in Britain that he was mentioned in Lord Byron's epic comic piece Don Juan.

Rich later died of cholera in Baghdad in 1821, aged 35.

After his death the majority of his collection went to the British Museum. It includes Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Armenian manuscripts, coins and ceramics.

The temporary ban comes as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) meets on Thursday to try and stop the looting of Iraq's cultural heritage.

Many priceless artefacts have been destroyed or looted from Iraqi museums after the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime in the last few weeks.