Irving Finkel shatters conventional wisdom on ancient writing, revealing how a "genius invention" encoded sound, shaped civilizations, and seeded narratives like Noah's Ark—challenging modern interpretations with millennia of overlooked data.
The Genesis of Cuneiform and the Sound Revolution
- Finkel challenges the accepted timeline of writing, arguing for a more sophisticated, sound-based origin for cuneiform. He posits that the "genius invention" of encoding sound with pictures liberated writing from limited pictographs, enabling the recording of complex language and grammar.
- Writing emerged around 3500 BC in Mesopotamia, driven by the need for agreed-upon symbols on clay.
- The crucial innovation was representing sounds with pictures, moving beyond simple pictographs (e.g., a foot meaning "foot" to meaning the sound of the word for foot).
- Early lexicography (the systematic compilation and standardization of words and their meanings) streamlined cuneiform, ensuring its legibility for over three millennia, a testament to its initial visionary design.
- Finkel controversially argues that sound-based writing likely preceded pictographic systems, which he views as a "stupid, inhibited" communication method primarily for inter-cultural trade.
“Once you had that, you're liberated from pictographic writing into a position where you can record language.” – Irving Finkel
Deciphering the Past: Cuneiform's Syllabic Code
- The conversation shifts to the monumental task of deciphering cuneiform, highlighting its complex syllabic structure and the unique challenge of Sumerian. Finkel explains how scholars cracked the code and the inherent limitations of current archaeological evidence.
- Cuneiform operates syllabically, combining vowels and consonants (e.g., 'ab', 'ba'), unlike alphabetic systems that represent individual consonants.
- Decipherment relied on trilingual inscriptions like the Behistun Inscription, similar to the Rosetta Stone, which provided parallel texts in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian.
- The Babylonian language, a Semitic tongue, was cracked using existing Hebrew and Arabic dictionaries, but Sumerian remains an isolated language, unrelated to any other known linguistic family.
- Finkel criticizes the "fallacy" that current archaeological finds represent the entirety of ancient knowledge, suggesting vast amounts of perishable material and looted libraries are lost, skewing our understanding.
“The truth that languages do not exist in a vacuum, but they're part of a big family must always have been true. So that when writing arrives... Sumerian was recorded just in time but the big languages maybe in China in Russia in somewhere else in Asia that were related to Samrian are gone are all gone they're gone forever and ever and ever unless something amazing happens.” – Irving Finkel
The British Museum's "Raindrop" and the Waterfall of History
- Finkel describes the British Museum's unique mission and uses a Sherlock Holmes analogy to illustrate how single artifacts can reveal vast historical narratives, challenging established archaeological timelines.
- The British Museum acts as a "lighthouse," celebrating human achievement across all cultures, serving both present and future generations by preserving artifacts.
- Finkel likens archaeological finds to "raindrops" from which scholars infer "Niagara Falls" of lost history, emphasizing the vast amount of unexcavated or perished evidence.
- He cites the Gobekli Tepe green stone seal (c. 9000 BC) as a "raindrop" indicating writing existed millennia before Mesopotamia's urban centers, challenging the "cities-invented-writing" theory.
- Finkel argues that ancient peoples were intellectually indistinguishable from modern humans, capable of complex communication and organization, as evidenced by monumental architecture like Gobekli Tepe.
“That seal from Geekly Tee is a raindrop from which I infer writing.” – Irving Finkel
The Ark Tablet, Flood Myths, and Literary Dependence
- Finkel recounts his discovery of the Atrahasis tablet, revealing a circular ark blueprint and establishing the Mesopotamian primacy of the flood narrative over the biblical account. He also critiques the literal interpretation of ancient texts.
- Finkel identified the 1700 BC Atrahasis tablet as a flood narrative predating the biblical Noah story by a millennium, detailing a round boat (coracle) design.
- The tablet describes gods deciding to wipe out noisy humanity with a flood, with one god warning Atrahasis to build a giant, waterproof coracle for male and female animals.
- The discovery confirmed "literary dependence" between Mesopotamian and Hebrew flood narratives, especially with parallels like releasing birds to find land, debunking the idea of independent origins.
- Finkel dismisses global flood hypotheses (e.g., Younger Dryas impact) as "negligible," arguing the Mesopotamian story likely stemmed from a localized, catastrophic river flood. He also highlights how Akkadian omens and medical texts, when translated literally, miss crucial modal verbs (could, might, should), implying a philosophical subtlety lost in modern interpretation.
“It wasn't two stories about the same thing. It was literary dependence. One was locked into the other.” – Irving Finkel
Ancient Games: Strategy, Chance, and "Time Pass"
- The discussion turns to ancient leisure, specifically the Royal Game of Ur, revealing its enduring popularity and the universal human need for structured play. Finkel explains how he deciphered its rules and its cultural significance.
- The Royal Game of Ur, a 20-square board game, was widespread across the ancient Middle East for nearly 3,000 years, played by everyone from pharaohs (like Tutankhamun) to commoners.
- Finkel deciphered its rules from a late Babylonian tablet, revealing a "race game" combining both chance (dice) and strategy, akin to modern backgammon.
- The game's global spread without written rules highlights an innate human capacity for cultural transmission and the universal appeal of balanced gameplay.
- Finkel identifies "time pass" (a concept from India for engaging in stimulating, non-overpowering activity during periods of idleness) as a primary driver for ancient games.
“The process of getting your pieces on and off the board as a winner is primarily fortuitous but it has built within it is the way I understand the game plays a a measurable quot of strategy.” – Irving Finkel
Modernity's Peril and the Enduring Value of Language
- Finkel critiques the modern electronic world's impact on human vitality and language, contrasting it with the British Museum's mission to preserve and interpret the depth of human history. He emphasizes the importance of precise language for clear thought.
- Finkel views the "electronic universe" as "disastrous for humans," reducing vitality and fostering an "addictive drug" dependency that inhibits natural human behavior and deep thought.
- He laments the decline of precise language use, arguing that a rich vocabulary is crucial for the quality of thought, citing Wittgenstein's "limits of my language means the limits of my world."
- The British Museum's mission is to provide a "big picture perspective," stockpiling artifacts for future examination, understanding that objects' significance shifts with time and distance.
- Finkel critiques monotheistic religions for fostering dogma and conflict, contrasting them with polytheistic systems that allowed for greater individual and cultural tolerance.
“I think that the modern adherence to the electronic universe is disastrous for humans and because it reduces the vitality of the human component.” – Irving Finkel
Investor & Researcher Alpha
- Data Scarcity & "Raindrop" Archaeology: Finkel's "raindrop" analogy for historical data highlights severe data sparsity and selection bias in current datasets. AI investors should back research into robust, sparse-data learning models and generative AI that can infer complex narratives from minimal, potentially biased, historical signals. This challenges the assumption that "more data is always better" and points to the value of high-signal, low-volume data.
- Lexicography & Language Model Robustness: The millennia-long stability of cuneiform, enabled by early lexicography, underscores the critical need for robust, standardized linguistic frameworks in AI. For LLMs, this implies investing in "lexicographic" rigor within training data and model architectures to prevent semantic drift and ensure long-term interpretability and reliability, especially for critical applications.
- Modal Verbs & AI Interpretation: Finkel's observation about the implied yet grammatically unexpressed modal verbs in Akkadian omens reveals a fundamental gap in current AI's ability to grasp nuance and intent. This suggests a critical research direction for AI to develop more sophisticated "philosophical" reasoning, moving beyond literal translation to infer implied meaning, context, and intent—crucial for high-stakes AI in legal, medical, or diplomatic domains.
Strategic Conclusion
Finkel's deep dive into ancient languages and artifacts reveals that human intellect and societal structures, though ancient, mirror modern complexities. His work underscores the profound impact of language on thought and the critical need for rigorous, context-aware interpretation of data. The industry must invest in AI models capable of inferring meaning from sparse, biased historical data, developing "philosophical" reasoning to grasp nuance beyond literal translation, and building robust, long-term linguistic frameworks for future knowledge preservation.
