The Mesopotamian Riddle

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

By: Joshua Hammer

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies

A rollicking adventure starring three free-spirited Victorians on a 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—as humans were gathering in complex urban settlements—a scribe in the mud-walled city-state of Uruk picked up a reed stylus to press tiny symbols into clay. For three millennia, wedge shape cuneiform script would record the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the great Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon and of Persia’s mighty Achaemenid Empire, along with precious minutiae about everyday life in the cradle of civilization. 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 had captured the Victorian public’s imagination. 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.

From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2025 Joshua Hammer (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio

Critic reviews

“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)