Couverture de The Mesopotamian Riddle

The Mesopotamian Riddle

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

Aperçu
Essayer pour 0,00 €
Écoutez en illimité un large choix de livres audio, créations & podcasts Audible Original et histoires pour enfants.
Recevez 1 crédit audio par mois à échanger contre le titre de votre choix - ce titre vous appartient.
Gratuit avec l'offre d'essai, ensuite 9,95 €/mois. Possibilité de résilier l'abonnement chaque mois.

The Mesopotamian Riddle

De : Joshua Hammer
Lu par : Matthew Lloyd Davies
Essayer pour 0,00 €

9,95 € par mois après 30 jours. Résiliez à tout moment.

Acheter pour 17,97 €

Acheter pour 17,97 €

À propos de cette écoute

An “adventure tale for puzzle lovers and Indiana Jones fans alike” (The Washington Post) following three free-spirited Victorians on their 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, 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 the 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? What were their values, their rituals, their understandings of their place in the universe? What was it like simply to be human at the dawn of recorded history?

Enter a swashbuckling archaeologist, a suave military officer turned diplomat, and a cloistered Irish rector, all vying for glory in a race to decipher the script that would enable humans to peer farther back into our history than ever before. From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, let The Mesopotamian Riddle whisk you off on “an epic intellectual adventure” (The Wall Street Journal) through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand where we came from—and where we perhaps might go.

©2025 Joshua Hammer (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio
Aventuriers, explorateurs et survie
Les membres Amazon Prime bénéficient automatiquement de 2 livres audio offerts chez Audible.

Vous êtes membre Amazon Prime ?

Bénéficiez automatiquement de 2 livres audio offerts.
Bonne écoute !

    Ces titres pourraient vous intéresser

    Couverture de King of Kings
    Couverture de Taking Manhattan
    Couverture de Abundance
    Couverture de Nuclear War
    Couverture de The English Assassin
    Couverture de Challenger
    Couverture de The Peacock and the Sparrow
    Couverture de Quantum Drama
    Couverture de 1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated)
    Couverture de Venice
    Couverture de To Run the World

    Commentaires

    “With brilliant characterization and edge-of-your-armchair suspense, The Mesopotamian Riddle is a tale within a tale, bringing to life the scholars and adventurers who aspired to nothing less than decoding the origins of civilization. And as in best detective novels, the story of those who uncover the mystery is as intriguing as the mystery itself. Displaying an investigative prowess worthy of the archaeologists he writes about, Joshua Hammer delivers a masterclass in narrative nonfiction.”
    —Julian Sancton, New York Times bestselling author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth
    "An archeological triumph receives the history it deserves. Readers who enjoyed the fictional adventures of Indiana Jones might imagine that real-life archeologists aren’t so exciting, but journalist Hammer, author of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, may change their minds."
    —Kirkus Reviews
    "Novelistic and immersive, this historical saga astounds."
    Publishers Weekly (starred review)
    Aucun commentaire pour le moment