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David's Reviews > The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing
The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World's Oldest Writing
by
by
The information at the top of this Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ 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:
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.) Considering the ever-rising clamor of former colonies asking for their looted patrimony returned, as well as a genuinely 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: and .
I received a free electronic copy of this book from via .
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.) Considering the ever-rising clamor of former colonies asking for their looted patrimony returned, as well as a genuinely 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: and .
I received a free electronic copy of this book from via .
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
September 3, 2024
– Shelved
