Great discoveries and epic rivalries were par for the course in the heated intellectual atmosphere of Victorian England. Think of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, the two giants of evolutionary theory, sparring over the mechanisms of natural selection, or John Speke and Richard Burton, the African explorers, feuding bitterly over who deserved credit for finding the source of the Nile.
But when I started research on my new book, The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World’s Oldest Writing, I was surprised to learn that the most intense rivalry of the era had raged in the usually sedate field of philology.
