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Humanity's earliest efforts at recording and drawing meaning from history reveal how lives millennia ago were not so different from our own.
Thousands of years ago, in a part of the world we now call ancient Mesopotamia, people began writing things down for the very first time.
What they left behind, in a vast region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, preserves leaps in human ingenuity, like the earliest depiction of a wheel and the first approximation of pi. But they also capture breathtakingly intimate, raw, and relatable moments, like a dog's paw prints as it accidentally stepped into fresh clay, or the imprint of a child's teeth.
In Between Two Rivers, historian Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid reveals what these ancient people chose to record about their lives, allowing us to brush hands with them millennia later. We find a lullaby to soothe a baby, instructions for exorcising a ghost, countless receipts for beer, and the messy writing of preschoolers. We meet an enslaved person negotiating their freedom, an astronomer tracing the movement of the planets, a princess who may have created the world's first museum, and a working mother struggling with "the juggle" in 1900 BCE.
Millennia ago, Mesopotamians saw the world's first cities, the first writing system, early seeds of agriculture, and groundbreaking developments in medicine and astronomy. With breathtaking intimacy and grace, Al-Rashid brings their lives―with all their anxieties, aspirations, and intimacies―vividly close to our own.
"A highly readable introduction to an era of history that deserves to be better known." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] nuanced meditation on how history gets made." —Publishers Weekly
"Between Two Rivers provides remarkable insights into ancient lives...Even at a distance of nearly four millennia, it is impossible not to be moved." ―The Sunday Times (UK)
"An extraordinary invitation to the magical land of Mesopotamia...Stunning." ―Sarah Parcak, author of Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past
"Moudhy al Rashid describes her job of reading ancient Mesopotamian texts as like shaking hands with strangers. She introduces them in this marvelous book, which not only brims with her humanity but offers fascinating and often funny insights into everyday life in this crucial era of world history. Fart jokes to exam stress, motherhood and tax evasion: you'll find something here that reminds you that it is not as remote as you might think." ―James Barr, author of A Line in the Sand
Rated 
of 5
by
Janine_S
Birth of recorded history highlighted
Fascinating audiobook read by the author. I learned so much about the civilizations between the Tigris and Euphrates in this book. The book chronicles the
"birth of recorded history which is absolutely fascinating. The book discusses eight artifacts found in the ruins of the palace of Ennigaldi-Nanna, high priestess, moon god of Ur. The artifacts includes statues and tablets used by students to study uniform, the language of Mesopotamia. The Sumerians, Babylonians and other peoples of this region were conscious of history, so keeping records were important. Their Epic of Gilgamesh, astronomy and mathematics achievements show these were not primitive people. But the reliquaries of war exist too, so it was also a time of conflict. I especially liked that the author showed the varied and important roles of women in those times. This is a great introduction to a little known period that should be highlighted more.
Moudhy Al-Rashid is an honorary fellow at the University of Oxford's Wolfson College, where she specializes in the languages and history of ancient Mesopotamia. Originally from Saudi Arabia, where she grew up, she now lives in Oxfordshire with her family and their dogs.
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