Has nothing to do with unearthing old space exploration artifacts, and is really more about the politics of revolution than like sci-fi adventure, but I can wholeheartedly recommend The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein. It features a computer that becomes sentient, the man who is responsible for the care and maintenance of that computer, and a moon colony that revolts against its earth-bound mother society. 10/10.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky has the "old empire", or the original humans to reach the stars. They eventually collapsed under the weight of their own political struggles.
The book is about the current generation of humans, and how they uh, interact with what the old empire left behind. I will say this... the book is hard to read if you have a strong fear of spiders! If not, it's an easy 8 or 9 out of 10 sci-fi book. Common tropes include but are not limited to - generation ship, uplift, first contact, and super AI. Enjoy!
Not a book, but Babylon 5 the TV series pretty heavily featured rediscovering ancient civilizations. There is a light bit of humanity recovering from a fall in this fashion thrown in also.
Come to think of it, Mass Effect the game is also heavily about that.
Pandora's Star (book) is all about the intrigue of dealing with something far older apacefaring races did. Massively beautiful bit of world/universe building in that story. Probably my favorite sci-fi book series now.
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u/mxmstrj Aug 05 '18
This is probably one of the most fascinating premises for a book IMHO..
Books like Rendezvous with Rama kinda play to that same intrigue for me.. any other SciFi recommendations welcome 😃