The Genesis Plague (2010)

lines bisected with numerous cross hashes to resemble overlapping Ts .
    ‘Here is a fantastic specimen that shows how the oldest Mesopotamian civilization, the Sumerians, tallied food supplies. This mushroom-shaped symbol here represents a cow …’ she indicated it with the laser pointer, ‘… and here we have the head count.’ She moved the dot slightly up and to the left to indicate symbols that looked like sideways Vs. ‘At first, these simple clay tablets were left to dry in the sun. As such, few of the earliest examples remain, since over time moisture and the elements took their toll on the clay - disintegrated the tablets. Eventually, however, the scribes learned that if the finished tablets were baked at a high temperature, the record would be virtually indestructible - permanent. It’s worth noting that this same technological advance was also applied to mud brick so that the ancients could construct grander, more permanent architectural structures.’
    For the next few minutes, she elaborated on a series of slides that showed a steady 2,000-year evolution from crude pictographs to schematic wedge-shaped forms called cuneiform - a slow march towards standard word symbols that borrowed and refined the old elements. Next came pictures of various artifacts that chronicled 3,000 years when cuneiform reigned supreme: a clay tablet from 2300 BC Akkad which tallied barley rations; an elaborate cylinder seal whose impressions depicted the Mesopotamian pantheon of gods and goddesses alongside narrative inscriptions; a clay ‘letter’ circa 1350 BC sent by the Babylonian king Burnaburiash to an Egyptian pharaoh; a stela from 860 BC, depicting the Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal II, in full royal dress, covered in neat rows of cuneiform; an inscribed Babylonian world map from 600 BC; an elaborate clay cylinder excavated from the palace wall of Nebuchadnezzar II.
    ‘It wasn’t long before writing was used to record legends and mythology. Thousands of years before Adam and Eve appear in the Hebrew book of Genesis, Mesopotamian creation myths - the world’s first true literature - featured a garden paradise, a tree of knowledge and humanity’s first man and woman. Long before Noah’s great flood, a cuneiform epic written in clay around 2700 BC tells the story of the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh, who’d built a boat to escape a cataclysmic flood. The tower of Babel is based on a magnificent temple pyramid in Ur - the ziggurat. And in 2100 BC Abraham leaves Ur to become the Old Testament patriarch, founder of monotheism and progenitor of the twelve tribes of Israel.’
    She noticed that the few scowling faces in the audience looked visibly relieved, leading her to conclude that they found her delicate tip-toeing through the material agreeable.
    ‘From these primitive languages emerge the early Semitic languages: Assyrian, Aramaic, Hebrew. Then come Greek, Latin, the Romance languages and English,’ she said. ‘Not until the Macedonian army led by Alexander the Great conquered Mesopotamia and Persia around 325 BC did cuneiform begin its rapid decline,’ Brooke said. ‘So be sure to visit the gallery and enjoy this most incredible exhibit - a true time capsule of human history written in clay.’

11
    In a wide stance with his winter coat folded over a crooked arm, Agent Thomas Flaherty stood stage-left, patiently waiting for the last fans queued along the auditorium’s main aisle to have Professor Thompson autograph a copy of her latest book, Mesopotamia - Empires of Clay . He couldn’t help but smile as he watched the left-handed palaeolinguist grip the pen in a tight hook and press her face close to the page while scrawling personalized messages and a swooping autograph.
    Flaherty carefully observed how she interacted with her admirers. A self-proclaimed master of character assessment - partly resultant from his undergrad psychology minor at Boston College - Flaherty decided that her endearing charm seemed genuine. No narcissism here. There was an air of innocence and vulnerability about her too, he decided.
    Fifteen minutes later, the final fans dallied out from the auditorium and the professor sat back to flex the fingers on her left hand.
    Flaherty moved in, saying, ‘And I thought the Middle East was all about oil.’
    Brooke smiled courteously.
    ‘Really enjoyed your lecture,’ Flaherty said. ‘You know your stuff. And you actually make it interesting. Too bad I didn’t have more professors like