The novel “Echo” (“Echo”) by Jack McDevitt was published for the first time in 2010. It’s part of the Alex Benedict series.

The antiquities dealer Alex Benedict finds a stone slab with an inscription in an unknown alphabet. The slab belonged to Somerset Tuttle, an eccentric archaeologist who spent his life looking for aliens, but without success. Benedict manages to buy the slab from the current owner but when he goes to pick it turns out that someone had preceded him.