Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for The Mesopotamian Riddle by Joshua Hammer - Wait list

The Mesopotamian Riddle

An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing

by Joshua Hammer
Matthew Lloyd Davies
Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: Not available
Place a hold Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: Not available
A rollicking adventure starring three free-spirited Victorians on a twenty-year quest to decipher cuneiform, the oldest writing in the world—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu.
It was one of history's great vanishing acts.

Around 3,400 BCE—as humans were gathering in complex urban settlements—a scribe in the mud-walled city-state of Uruk picked up a reed stylus to press tiny symbols into clay. For three millennia, wedge shape cuneiform script would record the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the great Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon and of Persia's mighty Achaemenid Empire, along with precious minutiae about everyday life in the cradle of civilization. And then...the meaning of the characters was lost.

London, 1857. In an era obsessed with human progress, mysterious palaces emerging from the desert sands had captured the Victorian public's imagination. Yet Europe's best philologists struggled to decipher the bizarre inscriptions excavators were digging up.

Enter a swashbuckling archaeologist, a suave British military officer turned diplomat, and a cloistered Irish rector, all vying for glory in a race to decipher this script that would enable them to peek farther back into human history than ever before.

From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 18, 2025

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781797190907
      • File size: 303481 KB
      • Duration: 10:32:14

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Listening to this history of the 1850s competition to decipher ancient Mesopotamian inscriptions is like listening to a Jules Verne or Conan Doyle adventure yarn. Narrator Matthew Lloyd Davies is a familiar voice in mystery and suspense fiction, and he clearly relishes what is not a musty story of scholarly reflection, but a cliff-hanger full of surprises and unexpected twists. Davies is a wonderful narrator for this kind of work, droll and cosmopolitan and silken to the ear. The process of decipherment will especially appeal to fans of espionage and decoding. But against the backdrop of Europe's historical relations with the Middle East, this is a story with many layers--and many buried treasures. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading