The sun scorched the plains of southern Iraq, casting wavering heat across the dig point. Dr. Layla Haddad knelt in the fosse , brushing down centuries of beach from what appeared to be a gravestone tablet. Her fritters quivered — not from the dry desert air, but from the weight of possibility. This was n’t just any point. This was Uruk, one of the first great metropolises of Sumer, a cradle of civilization.