Alamosa Public Library

Detailed essays, extensive photos, and informative sidebars describe life in ancient Mesopotamia, focusing on Babylon, the Kanesh letters, and Assyria, showing the results of significant archaeological digs; also includes a time line and a bibliography.

In this thriller set in the Middle East of 1914, Somerville, a British archaeologist, and his team are excavating a long-buried Assyrian palace when an American geologist from an oil company posing as an archaeologist arrives one day and insinuates himself into Somerville's group. But he's not the only one working undercover to stake a claim on Iraq's rich oil fields.