How do we know what we know? And how do we recover lost knowledge? Joshua Hammer's The Mesopotamian Riddle focuses on the rediscovery and recovery of cuneiform literacy. Focused on the 19th century, Hammer alternates between the work of scholars at home as well as archeologists, diplomats, soldiers and adventurers at the frontiers of empire.

Hammer biographies three of the key figures, alluded to in the subtitle. Austen H Layard a law clerk adventurer, later a celebrated archeologist; joined by Henry Creswicke Rawlinson on a shared first journey. Rawlinson was a military officer in the employment of the East India Language, who also had a lifelong interest in languages and worked on learning and deciphering them in his limited free time. The third figure, is Edward Hickes an overworked and financial struggling Irish county parson with a talent for languages, who was able to translate many ancient texts.

Hammer links the overall attitudes of the populace and imperial ambitions with the small scale, day to day struggles of the featured three. There is also their very different personalities and the sometimes petty world of academia or mindsets of racial superiority.

As much of the work is focused on deciphering a forgotten language, Hammer reconstructs the intuitive process the translators used, reproducing many of the cuneiform characters and what was learned from their efforts.

Touching on the amateur to expert process and political tensions between a weakening Ottoman empire, it's peoples and European Powers.

Recommended to readers or researchers of linguistics, triumphs of empire or the roles of privilege in scholarship.

Presented a cuneiform tablet, how would you find what it said?

Hammer presents a very thorough account of how that was done. There are the personalities involved. There is the story of how the different cuneiform languages were deciphered and also the history of the Abyssinian kings memorialized in the writings. As to the men involved, they were Victorian Britains who had the upbringing, education and egos to think success natural. As a group they pieced together a puzzle a bit at a time. There were leaders and squabbles and hard feelings. The public interest was high due to the arrival of artifacts that were exotic and begged understanding.

Thank you Simon & Schuster for this arc.

I was promised “A rollicking adventure starring three free-spirited Victorians on a twenty-year quest.” I’m not sure that the person who wrote that actually read the book. The idea did sound interesting – recovering a once widely used writing system that had captured the events of mighty empires as well as science and literature in one of the cradles of civilization and then became lost to history as knowledge of it vanished.

Hammer has obviously done his research. The book is packed with information about the ancient civilizations that used cuneiform writing to record a king’s mighty deeds as he crushed his enemies, as well as real estate sales contracts, a marriage contract, and one of the first works of literature. What about the Victorian men who put years into figuring out what looked like bird footprints impressed on clay tablets? So, so much information about them personally as well as their places in the mid Victorian world.

Part of understanding what the men were up against is understanding the politics of their day which led to some of the wars and uprisings of the day as well as European plundering of artifacts of the day from places associated with cuneiform writing. Most of those attempting to unlock cuneiform used “stepping stones” to do that thanks to, among others, a giant cliffside trilingual show piece that King Darius the Great had had carved to brag about defeating a bunch of rebels. Much like how the Rosetta stone’s three languages helped decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs, these men used extant/known languages to help figure out the Old Persian part, then finally moved on to Babylonian/Akkadian the language of Babylon, Nimrud, and Nineveh.

Other examples of cuneiform that helped them came from the ancient sites that several Europeans were busy looting – I mean excavating. I’m glad that Hammer includes all this and points out how what actually happened was a far cry from the standard (European) thought of the day that all of these artifacts were obtained with full permission of the governments from which they were taken. He skewers the means by which the collector whose donation to the country was the foundation for the British Museum got his money. He also mentions the deliberate destruction done by Isil in the city of Mosul in 2017.

But as interesting as all this is, I came for the language and it often gets lost among all these other things. Finally about the 1/3 mark, the focus (sort of) switches to this. Turns out that the “three” men mentioned were only part of a long line of men, each helping with insights and “Aha!” moments. Rivalry? Yes. Jealousy? That too. Bold boasts that “I’ve solved all these letters/phonemes and am thisclose to cracking this thing? Sometimes premature but there were such proclamations.

Many things slowed down the translation work such as a lack of new signs to study, diseases that periodically swept through Baghdad, and the Irish potato famine. Realizing that Akkadian cuneiform had so many multiple phonetic values that could be read/pronounced in different ways just about drove one man to despair. One man bemoaned what he viewed as English disdain for the Irish in not acknowledging his contributions such as the belief that Akkadian was a Semitic language. Finally the Challenge contest arrived which proved (except to the French), that the mystery of cuneiform had been solved, giving us back a world lost for 2500 years.

The final section of the book gets down in the mud and calls out the blatant wrongs done (mainly by the British Museum) to various people over the years of decipherment mainly because they were not "our sort." One man got the lion’s share of acclaim for deciphering cuneiform. But recently, this has been reexamined and the one who was shunted away from public acknowledgement of his epic contributions is finally getting his due. In the epilogue, the author talks about the ongoing efforts of countries to have their stolen patrimonies returned. This book is a little rocky at times but overall, is well worth the effort. B

n The Mesopotamian Riddle, Joshua Hammer presents a captivating narrative chronicling the 19th-century quest to decipher cuneiform, the world's oldest known writing system. The book centers on three Victorian-era figures: an archaeologist, a soldier, and a clergyman, whose combined efforts unraveled the mysteries of ancient Mesopotamian inscriptions.

Hammer's storytelling vividly brings to life the challenges and triumphs faced by these pioneers. Their journey is portrayed not merely as an academic endeavor but as an adventurous pursuit filled with intellectual rivalry and personal determination. The author's meticulous research and engaging prose make the historical narrative both informative and entertaining.

The Mesopotamian Riddle is a testament to human curiosity and the relentless pursuit of knowledge. It offers readers a window into a pivotal moment in history when the ancient past was brought to light through perseverance and scholarly dedication. This work is recommended for those interested in history, archaeology, and the stories behind humanity's greatest discoveries.

I am horrible with languages. Two years of Russian and 4 years of Spanish resulted in my ability to say about 10 words (total) in each language. I can't fathom trying to figure out a language that no one else speaks anymore. And yet, that is the plot of Joshua Hammer's The Mesopotamian Riddle.

Now, there are a lot of different stories contained in the book. I'd argue a bit too much even while the entire narrative is interesting. In short, the book follows multiple people around the 1850s as they attempt to decipher some cuneiform. The main characters are Henry Rawlinson and Edward Hincks with other people in their orbit. The two men could not have been more different with the singular exception that they both were driven to decipher some archaeological findings.

This is not, however, a book on pure intellectual discussions. Hammer ranges far and wide to fill in historical gaps about ancient leaders, international politics, and personal conflicts. At times, I think Hammer jams a bit too much into the narrative. His digressions are always well written and engaging, but I found myself a few times wishing we could return to the main story of Rawlinson and Hincks. Ultimately, the book is a very good read if a little overstuffed.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Simon & Schuster.)

An interesting and well written book about a little known chapter of archaeology. While I enjoyed the eponymous riddle, I have to admit that I preferred the previous book by this author, "The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu", for a very simple reason - it focused on a Malian character and delved deep into the local history and culture. This new book follows mainly white Victorians and I am a bit tired of stories told from a western perspective.

Thanks to the publisher, Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

"The Mesopotamian Riddle" is a gripping exploration of the mysteries of ancient Mesopotamia, seamlessly blending history, archaeology, and suspense. Hammer weaves the discovery of a long-lost cuneiform tablet with the modern-day intrigue of the scholars racing to decode its secrets. The book vividly brings to life the rich culture of Mesopotamia—the cradle of civilization—while also diving into the personal stories of the archaeologists and researchers whose work uncovers these ancient treasures. For anyone fascinated by the origins of writing, early cities, and the echoes of ancient societies in today’s world, this book delivers a compelling journey.

What makes the book especially engaging is Hammer's ability to balance historical detail with narrative drive. He captures the awe of ancient discoveries while also examining the ethical and political challenges of preserving such artifacts in a modern context. It’s a fascinating read for anyone who loves history but also craves a touch of adventure. While the academic depth might feel a bit dense for casual readers, it’s worth sticking with—this is a book that rewards curiosity and passion for the past.

I must admit that I had a preexisting interest in this subject matter, but even if I had not, I think this book would have served as a very very interesting introduction to the beginning of modern Assyriology, and the history of the decipherment of dead languages as a whole.

I loved the way that Hammer brought the "big three" figures of the field, Rawlinson, Layard, and Hincks, to life with the narratives he put together from his research. Descriptions of Rawlinson sweating over cuneiform in Baghdad, or Layard wandering through the borderlands of the Ottoman Empire getting robbed by bandits—these are the things that one often finds missing in the usual account of the early days of cuneiform study.

Hammer is able to make these people feel emotionally real as well! Full of aspiration and excitement, as well as resentment and disappointment. In the final few chapters of the book, I found I couldn't really put it down, I was rooting for Hincks so much! I also appreciated how Hammer, in each chapter, sort of book-ended the story of the decipherment of cuneiform with some history of the actual civilizations that used it. I love learning about the Achaemenids, and the Assyrians, and I think reading this book is going to lead to me reading more books about these topics in the future! I really do think that Hammer has succeeded here in accomplishing what I think the best historical nonfiction accomplishes: bringing humanity and immediacy to events and people in the past, and allowing learning about history to become a side-effect of following an engaging narrative with interesting characters in a really good book!

In "The Mesopotamian Riddle's" epilogue, Hammer, a longtime journalist, recalls a visit to the British Museum when he was contemplating writing the book and looking for guidance. A scowling curator suggested he come back when he'd earned his PhD in Assyriology, and threatened to pan the eventual work in the London Review of Books. I'm no expert (if I was Henry Rawlinson pondering cuneiform, I'd have gone to my grave without figuring out which direction the lines go in), but I've read plenty of ancient-history popularizations, and this is one of the best. I'll defer to the eventual LRB review (the book's due out in March) on whether it gets the details of the decipherment right, but Hammer inspires confidence.

Edward Dolnick, a nonacademic who wrote "The Writing of the Gods," about the race to decode Egyptian hieroglyphics, has given the publisher a long, enthusiastic blurb for the book. If anything, Hammer has done an even better job than Dolnick did, avoiding Dolnick's occasionally gee-whizzy style and making the problems involved in translating cuneiform -- next to which reading hieroglyphics almost seems like a warmup exercise -- probably as clear as they can be to a general audience.

Simon & Schuster calls the book "rollicking," a word that invariably means a work does not, in fact, rollick at all. In this case, it hardly needs to. Hammer clearly did a vast amount of research and has come up with fascinating portraits of the main players, particularly soldier/diplomat/scholar Rawlinson and his protégé Henry Layard, who excavated Nineveh. Watching their relationship go from mutual admiration and warm friendship to near estrangement, largely because of Rawlinson's inability to admit his substantial mistakes in reading Assyrian texts, is genuinely sad.

The book also vividly brings home the hazards of mid-19th-century Middle Eastern archaeology, from malaria and cholera to insurrections against the Ottoman authorities to moving immensely heavy friezes and statuary from what's now northern Iraq to Basra and eventually London. And while the British Museum certainly deserves its reputation as a repository of stolen goods, it's interesting to read about the panic and anger with which the people of Mosul and a local qadi greeted Layard's unearthing of what they took to be demonic figures in the mound at Nimrod. I don't know if I'm up for the amount of Victorian prose that would be involved in reading the first-person accounts of those involved, but I'll be looking for more books on the era.

(ARC via NetGalley.)

More than 5000 years ago, scribes from the Mesopotamian kingdoms of Assyria, Babylon, and Sumer began inscribing information on clay using tiny symbols known as cuneiform. In the mid-19th century, during the height of the Victorian era in Europe, three distinct individuals vied to be the first to translate ancient Assyrian into English. Contrary to the notion that scholars always collaborate harmoniously, Hammer's latest historical work reveals startling conflicts, political maneuvering, class tensions, and deceitful tactics among these three ersatz translators. The narrative is quite revealing, with an archaeologist, a British military officer turned diplomat, and an Irish Rector as passionate, fascinating, and rather obsessive scientists of their era.

Unfortunately, "The Mesopotamian Riddle" is so densely packed with information that it's easy to become overwhelmed by trivial details or seemingly tangential historical digressions. As a result, the central narrative often gets rather lost. While the book is engaging, a more concise edition might be easier to follow. I would recommend this book primarily for avid history buffs; it may prove overly complex for the casual reader.

The extended title puts a bit of a spin on the facts but the idea is true.
This one took a bit more time for me to understand how the scholars of the 19th century started with an untranslated visual language and figured out the direction of the letters and developed an understanding of the meaning of the communication form on various stele created in a number of BCE kingdoms. they found evidence that scribes used three basic cuneiform-based languages.
There are a few photos that will be much better represented in a print copy. I did enjoy diving into it and have already preordered an audio.
I went bats over his earlier book The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World’s Most Precious Manuscripts in 2016. Even if I prefer the term Archivists. I also learned a lot about the history, superstitions, and illegalities of a kettle of falcons in his book The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird in 2020.
I requested and received a temporary advance uncorrected reader's proof compliments of publisher Simon and Schuster via NetGalley. Thank you! I geek history!
Pub Date Mar 18, 2025 #TheMesopotamianRiddle by Joshua Hammer @Joshuaiveshamme @simonschuster #Nonfiction #LinguisticHistory

Great Read! Joshua Hammer made this book an extra adventure by giving such great detail to the adventurers of the 1800’s in the chase for finding all the historical relics and deciphering ancient languages of earlier civilizations. I am sure current archaeological digs are just as dangerous and fascinating. This book should be required reading for the current young generation so the appreciation of history is not lost. The epilogue is the evidence for that. A highly recommended book!

I had high hopes for this, but I suppose the subtitle gave it away: a list of white, privileged, European men doing research on ancient civilizations. The book is just one line after another repeating and reifying the white, Western, male, historic gaze. The author occasionally calls out racism in period sources, but needs this serious editing for casual and problematic writing throughout. One example is claiming that archaeology was essentially founded by Charles VII of Naples in 1748, but there were systematic studies of the past & its artifacts as early as the 6th century BCE. There's lots of things like deserts being “empty “ because there were no white people, only indigenous folks; similarly, there's far too much of “no one knew what it was/meant” with “no one” meaning, again, white European men. Even Hormuzd Rassam, a major contributor to the decipherment, is mentioned as a "local" who needed the mentorship and patronage of white men to become useful to them. The treatment of women is also an issue: “…he wrote to his aunt, Benjamin Austen’s wife, in London.” No name, just her status as something existing only in relation to a man. In work like this book, I expect at least a mention of the various "Others" who assisted with these projects.

Informative and written with a strong narrative arc, a definite recommendation for anyone who wants to learn more about how a simple find can lead to momentous discovery, and the academic battles along the way.

The information at the top of this Goodreads page (as well as the promotional blurb (neither probably, I know, not written by the author) at the front of the free electronic review copy of this book that I received) describes the book’s plot, in part, as follows:

Enter a swashbuckling archeologist, 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 even before.

This, I think, gives the wrong impression. This is not a deal-breaker for me, but it tended to create a little confusion as I read.

I felt, rightly or wrongly, the setup indicated that there was going to be some sort of suspenseful early-Victorian-era competition between multiple parties of colorful 19th-century eccentrics to decode an ancient language. There was a competition (in 1857), it’s true, but it wasn’t really very suspenseful and in any case most of the book isn’t really about the competition, which is mentioned at the beginning of this book and then returned to in the last chapter. The competition was held to determine if the various competing parties, working independently, would come up with more or less the same translation of “eight hundred lines of tiny cuneiform characters” believed to date from 1100 BCE. If so, the writing of the language which eventually was known as “Akkadian” would be considered to be completely deciphered. If the participants came up with wildly different translations, one or more parties in the contest might experience public humiliation. (Spoiler: (view spoiler))

The book is largely about the long (about 30 years) period of excavation, state-sponsored looting, colonial hijinks, and squabbling academic rivalry that led up to the 1857 competition.

Sometimes the “Acknowledgements” section at the end of a book is not worth spending a lot of time on. They are often just a list of names of people who helped. In this case, it was more interesting, as the author tells of the rather snobbish rebuff that he received from a curator at the British Museum whom he asked for guidance. This was interesting as, in the course of the main narrative in the book, there were many examples of the same type of class arrogance which, for example, sometimes advantaged the swashbuckling (aristo) archaeologist mentioned above vs. the (provincial, relatively unconnected) Irish rector. However, given that, today, the British Museum is in greater need of favorable publicity, you might think that the staff would be more conscious of helping the uninformed. (In this case, the author has written several relatively successful books; he’s not like some random person off the street is asking questions that could be answered on Wikipedia.) In addition to the ever-rising clamor of former colonies asking for their looted patrimony returned, as well as a genuinely shocking case of a staff member who apparently, for years, stole British Museum property undetected and sold it to private collectors, you’d think that the British Museum would be more interested in cultivating a positive impression.

There were two words in this book that I didn't know and were not, I felt, completely understandable from context. They occurred close to each other near Kindle location 3652. They were: lamassu and kelek.

I received a free electronic copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley.

"The Mesopotamian Riddle" by Joshua Hammer is an intriguing blend of historical exploration and suspenseful narrative. Hammer skillfully delves into the ancient mysteries of Mesopotamia, uncovering secrets buried in time and blending them with a gripping modern-day investigation. The book’s meticulous research and vivid storytelling provide a fascinating glimpse into ancient civilizations while maintaining a thrilling pace. It’s a must-read for history enthusiasts and mystery lovers alike.

This was an interesting book. It was a little outside my knowledge reach, but I still enjoyed it and got something from it.