Joshua Hammer’s book about cuneiform, a writing system that defined the pre-Hellenic world as much as its monuments did, is a stirring and challenging read.

Stirring, because it brings to light in novelistic fashion the efforts of three archeologist-philologists whose competition ultimately yielded information from monuments that spoke of a world no one knew had existed.

And challenging, because describing their attempts to decipher cuneiform’s wedge-shaped symbols is complicated.

Even the cover of “The Mesopotamian Riddle” is notable, not only for its design but also for the prominently displayed subtitle: “An archeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World’s Oldest Writing.” The cover design should win a prize for its Victoria-Era, highly tactile style, while the subtitle succinctly lays out the arc of the book.

The deciphering of cuneiform gained momentum in the 1850s, although efforts to decipher ancient languages date to the 17th century. Hammer frames his tale by interweaving the journeys of three academics of different temperament, pedigree and approach who crossed paths in remote places and occasionally worked, if not together, in a kind of harmony with each other.

Austen Henry Layard left clerking in a law office for adventure in the Ottoman Empire, which at the time was far off the beaten track. Henry Creswicke Rawlinson was manor-born, escaping his privileged youth to become a military officer working for the East India Company in Persia. And Edward Hincks was the most introverted, a country parson back in his native Ireland.

“By 1856 the paths of these three men had converged in a sometimes friendly, often combustible pas de trois,” Hammer writes. “Now, with Layard watching from a judicious distance, Hincks and Rawlinson were about to become the prime contestants in a challenge to determine, once and for all, whether the oldest writing system in the world could be deciphered.”

In the spring of 2022, Hammer’s research into one of the three protagonists-to-be triggered his desire to write this book. As he says in the acknowledgments: “I would write a book about two simultaneous quests, the search for a lost civilization that had been buried in the desert sands for 2,500 years, and the competition to understand the writing that it left behind.”

This elegantly written, fascinating account allows us to “visit” long-gone, legendary cities like Ur, Babylon and Nineveh, where lamassus, sculptures half-man, half-beast, guarded royal chambers. Hammer floods the reader with the history of the territory including what has been called the Fertile Crescent, which for hundreds of years was dominated by the rulers of Assyria, Syria, Egypt, and Israel.

Hammer brings the Victorian Era to life, and he transports the reader to what used to be called the Orient — but now goes by the Middle East. Hammer covers the forming of Sumer from 4500 to 4800 BCE, and 330 BCE, when Alexander the Great put an end to the Achaemenid empire.

While Akkadian cuneiform is its through-line, “The Mesopotamian Riddle” is about much more than that. This book raises highly contemporary, perennial questions, starting with: Who “owns” history?

Should historical artifacts be taken from their original site and broken up for display in a museum or left where they are? Who determines what survives of history? Who edits it?

Hammer also shows how myth and history bleed into each other and salts the book with stories of empires headed by monarchs mentioned in the Bible, clearly one of the key historical sources, like Herodotus.

Readers might have to consult a dictionary from time to time. It won’t help you “sound out” the cuneiform, but it should help you grasp some of the terms.

Still — how three men deepened our historical knowledge through their intrepid endeavors makes for an unexpectedly entertaining — as well as stirring and challenging — reading experience.

Carlo Wolff is a writer from Cleveland. His most recent book, “Invisible Soul,” is a look at Cleveland’s soul music scene from the ‘50s to the ‘80s.

First Published: March 22, 2025, 9:30 a.m.