A Comprehensive, Entertaining Introduction to the Cradle of Civilization

Moudhy Al-Rashid’s ‘Between Two Rivers’ guides the reader through millennia of ancient civilization via artifacts from history’s first museum.

Author Moudhy Al-Rashid, who specializes in languages and the history of Mesopotamia, presents her latest book "Between Two Rivers." David C. Lancaster

In the 1920s, British archaeologist C. Leonard Woolley made a major discovery in southern Iraq, in what was once known as the city of Ur. After excavation, the site was determined to be the palace of a 6th-century B.C. princess; but, indeed, it was so much more than that. With its numerous artifacts that stretched across the millennia, even thousands of years before the time of the princess, Woolley had found what he called the world’s first museum.

Moudhy Al-Rashid’s new book, “Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History” takes readers to the 2,600-year-old palace ruins. As she noted, Ur was actually abandoned a century after Princess Ennigaldi-Nanna—also the priestess of the moon god—occupied this palace. For whatever reason, it was abandoned, seemingly for climate issues. The palace became a mound (or “tell,” an archeological term) preserving about “3,500 years’ worth of occupation in antiquity,” ultimately stretching back into the 4th and 5th millennium B.C.

‘The Birth of Writing’

Among the artifacts in the palace and the surrounding areas of Ur were jewels, statues, pottery, and human remains. What became the most important find, according to Al-Rashid, was cuneiform. The writing found on clay tablets not only provided a glimpse into the societies of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and others, but it preserved the earliest form of writing. Humorously, as the book notes, the oldest piece discovered was written by a “middle manager” named Kushim, who “managed the products harvested by the people he oversaw and the payments for those people’s labour in rations.”