The Mesopotamian Riddle

Around 3,400 B.C., a scribe in the city-state of Uruk began to imprint tiny symbols into clay. For the next three millennia, cuneiform script — the oldest writing in the world — would be used to record military victories, scientific breakthroughs, and literature of Mesopotamia, Babylon, and Persia. Hammer takes readers on a journey through the golden age of archaeology to rediscover and unlock this lost language and its meaning. From Victorian England to the ruins of Persepolis to the Ottoman Empire and more, an entertaining cast of characters race to decipher human history at times earlier than ever before in The Mesopotamian Riddle (Simon & Schuster).