Arthur begins his jour­ney at the British Muse­um in 1857–58, step­ping into a new chap­ter of his life with both excite­ment and appre­hen­sion. He is intro­duced to the Keep­er of Ori­en­tal Antiq­ui­ties and his assis­tant, Edward, who rep­re­sents every­thing Arthur feels he lacks—refinement, edu­ca­tion, and a well-to-do back­ground. Edward’s poised demeanor and phys­i­cal fit­ness, along with his well-tai­lored clothes, stand in stark con­trast to Arthur’s self-per­ceived short­com­ings. Arthur’s lack of for­mal edu­ca­tion and his unkempt appear­ance make him feel like an out­sider, but despite this, he is deter­mined to make a name for him­self in this pres­ti­gious insti­tu­tion.

At the muse­um, Arthur faces an enor­mous task that would over­whelm any­one: the exam­i­na­tion and orga­ni­za­tion of over thir­ty-five thou­sand Mesopotami­an clay tablets, many of which are dam­aged or frag­ment­ed. Despite doubts about his abil­i­ty to man­age such a mon­u­men­tal respon­si­bil­i­ty, Arthur con­tin­ues to tack­le the job each day, find­ing a sense of pur­pose and order amidst the chaos. His fas­ci­na­tion with the ancient arti­facts grows, and as he pieces togeth­er the frag­ments, each dis­cov­ery feels like a per­son­al vic­to­ry, draw­ing him deep­er into the ancient world and its mys­ter­ies. This task becomes more than just labor for Arthur—it evolves into a deeply per­son­al mis­sion to uncov­er the sto­ries of the peo­ple who lived thou­sands of years ago.

As Arthur delves fur­ther into the tablets, he begins to iden­ti­fy with the peo­ple who wrote them. He starts imag­in­ing their lives, their strug­gles, and their emo­tions, real­iz­ing that the inscrip­tions on the clay tablets are not mere­ly trans­ac­tion­al records but also expres­sions of human expe­ri­ence. Arthur finds humor, frus­tra­tion, and even pro­found insight with­in the ancient scrib­blings. With each tablet he deci­phers, Arthur feels a clos­er con­nec­tion to the past, under­stand­ing that the emo­tions and expe­ri­ences of ancient civ­i­liza­tions are strik­ing­ly sim­i­lar to his own, despite the vast pas­sage of time.

In par­al­lel with his per­son­al growth, the British Muse­um under­goes a trans­for­ma­tion. What once appeared as a chaot­ic col­lec­tion of relics is grad­u­al­ly becom­ing a more struc­tured and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly focused insti­tu­tion. This shift mir­rors Arthur’s own jour­ney, as he finds his place with­in this new­ly evolv­ing field of Mesopotami­an stud­ies. Unlike oth­er fields of acad­e­mia, Arthur dis­cov­ers that there is no rigid hier­ar­chy in his field, allow­ing for a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute freely and grow in his knowl­edge and under­stand­ing with­out the con­straints that might sti­fle cre­ativ­i­ty in oth­er dis­ci­plines.

While his pro­fes­sion­al life begins to sta­bi­lize, Arthur’s per­son­al life remains tur­bu­lent. As he deals with evic­tion notices and over­crowd­ed liv­ing con­di­tions, he becomes more disheveled, both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. His family’s strug­gles weigh heav­i­ly on him, with his father’s ongo­ing issues with alco­hol and his mother’s declin­ing health cre­at­ing an over­whelm­ing sense of despair. Arthur feels as though he is trapped between his aspi­ra­tions and the real­i­ties of his per­son­al life, but he remains com­mit­ted to his work at the muse­um, hop­ing that it will lead him to a brighter future.

In the midst of these per­son­al chal­lenges, Arthur makes a remark­able dis­cov­ery that reignites his pas­sion for his work. He uncov­ers a tablet that hints at the exis­tence of ancient poet­ry, a find­ing that adds a lay­er of beau­ty and sig­nif­i­cance to the every­day records he has been study­ing. This dis­cov­ery not only sparks his excite­ment but also secures him a per­ma­nent posi­tion at the muse­um, offer­ing him a sense of sta­bil­i­ty and pur­pose. Arthur’s new­found sense of ded­i­ca­tion to pre­serv­ing the sto­ries of the past becomes the cor­ner­stone of his pro­fes­sion­al life, and through his efforts, he hopes to leave a last­ing lega­cy, much like the Riv­er Thames itself, which flows through his­to­ry, unbro­ken and con­stant. In his work, Arthur finds not just a career but a mis­sion to pre­serve the for­got­ten voic­es of the ancient world.