The Mesopotamian Riddle by Joshua Hammer

 

Title:  The Mesopotamian Riddle

Author:  Joshua Hammer

Narrated by:  Matthew Lloyd Davies

Publisher: Simon Audio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 32 minutes

Source: Thank-you to #HistoryBuffsBookClub @History_In_Five for a review copy of the hardcover book.  The audiobook was purchased on audible.

Do you listen to audiobooks on family trips?  We like to listen to nonfiction books on history on family trips.

The Mesopotamian Kingdoms of Sumer, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia used a system of writing call cuneiform.  Its meaning was lost over time, but in London in 1857, three different people worked to crack the code.  They were archeologist Austen Henry Layard, soldier Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, and clergyman Edward Hincks.  How did they figure it out?

My thoughts on this nonfiction book:

·       We listened to this audiobook on a summer family trip.  The kids were not interested so only my husband and I ended up listening to it.  The narrator was a tad dry.

·       There was a lot of history of Mesopotamia in the text, which was very interesting.

·       It seemed incredible to my husband and I on how these linguists were able to figure out the meanings of the dead language.

·       The book described the history of the ancient civilizations as well as the Victorian time period.

·       The book was also critical of the British removing ancient artifacts ad taking them back to the British Museum.

·       In 1857, the Royal Asiatic Society hosted a challenge to four people to decipher writings and that set the stage for this book. When all of the translations matched, it verified that they had cracked the code.

·       The book jumped around in time a lot.

Overall, The Mesopotamian Riddle by Joshua Hammer was an interesting look into ancient civilizations and the Victorian scholars who worked to crack the ancient writings from these great civilizations.