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The Mesopotamian riddle : an archaeologist, a soldier, a clergyman, and the race to decipher the world's oldest writing Cover Image Book Book

The Mesopotamian riddle : an archaeologist, a soldier, a clergyman, and the race to decipher the world's oldest writing / Joshua Hammer.

Hammer, Joshua, 1957- (author.).

Summary:

Around 3,400 BCE,a scribe in the mud-walled city-state of Uruk picked up a reed stylus to press tiny symbols into clay. For the next three thousand years, wedge-shape cuneiform script would record the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the great kingdoms of Mesopotamia. And then ... the meaning of the characters was lost. London, 1857. In an era obsessed with human progress, mysterious palaces emerging from Middle Eastern desert sands have captured the Victorian public’s imagination. Assyria, Babylon, the mighty Persian Empire ... these civilizations had gone down in the annals as the great antagonists to ancient Greece and ancient Israel. What did these "bad guys" of Western history have to say for themselves? 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.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9781668015445
  • ISBN: 1668015447
  • Physical Description: xiv, 380 pages : illustrations, map ; 22 cm
  • Edition: First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
  • Publisher: New York : Simon & Schuster, 2025.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 321-358) and index.

Search for related items by subject

Subject: Assyriology > History.
Cuneiform inscriptions.
Cuneiform writing.
Iraq > Civilization > To 634.
Iraq > History > To 634.
Genre: Informational works.

Available copies

  • 0 of 2 copies available at Sage Library System. (Show)
  • 0 of 1 copy available at Hood River County Library District.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 2 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Circulation Modifier Status Due Date Courses
Hood River County Library 492.1802 HAM 2025 (Text) 33892101038215 Adult New Books Checked out 05/27/2025

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