Book Review | The Colorful Crew Who Unlocked the Past

Book Review | The Colorful Crew Who Unlocked the Past

The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World’s Oldest Writing By Joshua Hammer Simon & Schuster, 400 pp. Modern archaeology, which began in the 18th century, underwent an explosion of activity in the century that followed. Its most remarkable achievement was the unearthing of unknown civilizations in the Near East, the cradle of Western civilization—a feat that involved an initial encounte…