her head back in the game and would love nothing more than to be in the thrall of something bigger. Piecing together the puzzle of humanity’s ancient past is what drew her to Mesopotamian studies in the first place. Teaching was never Cheri’s passion. It was research and translation that thrilled and sustained her. Nothing compared to holding a clay tablet in her hands, knowing she would be the first person to read it in thousands of years. Translating known languages was a cakewalk compared to the linguistic detective work of deciphering cuneiform. She’s always dreamed of being first in on a new discovery, having her translation become the benchmark for every subsequent generation of scholars. Now that she’s part of Samuelson’s team translating tablets rumored to be of biblical importance, this kind of lasting contribution is within her grasp. But first, she has to break out of the fog of infertility and pin down Samuelson about her job description.
Cheri walks past a row of Thai restaurants on Fifty-Fifth Street, heading toward the lake. She’s heard Samuelson has been meeting with someone from the British Museum but she was supposed to be his primary—and only U.S.—cuneiformist. Her husband’s words return to her: “You can’t trust someone with two last names. Pace yourself; if you get caught up in every perceived slight, you’ll run out of energy for the real heartache.”
From their accidental discovery in 1991 by a Sunni villager digging a ditch near the ancient city of Ur, the Tell Muqayyar tablets have been a tangled web of happenstance and politics. The clay tablets—most in fragments—were no sooner found than separated and dispersed on the black market. Over the years, some were confiscated and returned to Iraq’s national museum; others landed in the British Museum. They would have moldered in basements, along with thousands of other undeciphered tablet fragments, were it not for a plot twist. A cuneiform scholar from the British Museum stumbled onto one of the illegal fragments in a London antiquities shop and noted that its seal impression corresponded with a stone cylinder seal on documents he’d recently cataloged. Now it was a tale of two institutes, each with broken pieces of related texts and its own ideas about how to assemble and translate them. Neither could proceed without the other’s fragments, so a third party was needed to mediate. Last year, when it looked like Iraq was opening back up, McCall Samuelson, as the United States’ most experienced Mesopotamian archaeologist, was tapped to lead an international team of scholars in reconstructing and interpreting the tablets. Rumors swirled that the ancient documents could trace back to Abraham. Proving that the original biblical patriarch was a real historical figure was, indeed, the holy grail of archaeology.
Cuneiform scholarship was a small and rarefied field and one that was not immune to the petty politics and social climbing that was the blood sport of academe. Many of her colleagues were vying for a spot on Samuelson’s team, and while Cheri knew Peter Martins—the scholar who had found the fragment at the London antique shop—and knew he’d put in a good word for her, it was both a relief and a triumph when she was named last month to his team. Involvement in a project of such prestige qualified her for the leave of absence she was desperate to take. It also stopped the clock on her tenure review while pretty much guaranteeing she’d receive it upon her return.
Her ears sting from the lake-locked chill and she needs nicotine. She turns her back to the wind, cups her hand, and lights up. Delicious. She tells herself she’ll quit when she’s pregnant and heads toward a green canvas awning that says The Woodlawn Tap. It’s an old journalist’s hangout, a dump known for its grilled cheese sandwiches and collection of reference books. She steps inside, walks around the horseshoe-shaped room, and spots Samuelson in
Cheri walks past a row of Thai restaurants on Fifty-Fifth Street, heading toward the lake. She’s heard Samuelson has been meeting with someone from the British Museum but she was supposed to be his primary—and only U.S.—cuneiformist. Her husband’s words return to her: “You can’t trust someone with two last names. Pace yourself; if you get caught up in every perceived slight, you’ll run out of energy for the real heartache.”
From their accidental discovery in 1991 by a Sunni villager digging a ditch near the ancient city of Ur, the Tell Muqayyar tablets have been a tangled web of happenstance and politics. The clay tablets—most in fragments—were no sooner found than separated and dispersed on the black market. Over the years, some were confiscated and returned to Iraq’s national museum; others landed in the British Museum. They would have moldered in basements, along with thousands of other undeciphered tablet fragments, were it not for a plot twist. A cuneiform scholar from the British Museum stumbled onto one of the illegal fragments in a London antiquities shop and noted that its seal impression corresponded with a stone cylinder seal on documents he’d recently cataloged. Now it was a tale of two institutes, each with broken pieces of related texts and its own ideas about how to assemble and translate them. Neither could proceed without the other’s fragments, so a third party was needed to mediate. Last year, when it looked like Iraq was opening back up, McCall Samuelson, as the United States’ most experienced Mesopotamian archaeologist, was tapped to lead an international team of scholars in reconstructing and interpreting the tablets. Rumors swirled that the ancient documents could trace back to Abraham. Proving that the original biblical patriarch was a real historical figure was, indeed, the holy grail of archaeology.
Cuneiform scholarship was a small and rarefied field and one that was not immune to the petty politics and social climbing that was the blood sport of academe. Many of her colleagues were vying for a spot on Samuelson’s team, and while Cheri knew Peter Martins—the scholar who had found the fragment at the London antique shop—and knew he’d put in a good word for her, it was both a relief and a triumph when she was named last month to his team. Involvement in a project of such prestige qualified her for the leave of absence she was desperate to take. It also stopped the clock on her tenure review while pretty much guaranteeing she’d receive it upon her return.
Her ears sting from the lake-locked chill and she needs nicotine. She turns her back to the wind, cups her hand, and lights up. Delicious. She tells herself she’ll quit when she’s pregnant and heads toward a green canvas awning that says The Woodlawn Tap. It’s an old journalist’s hangout, a dump known for its grilled cheese sandwiches and collection of reference books. She steps inside, walks around the horseshoe-shaped room, and spots Samuelson in
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