Deciphering Secrets of Ancient Civilizations, Noah's Ark, and Flood Myths | Lex Fridman Podcast #487

The following is a conversation with Irving Finkele who is a scholar of ancient languages curator at the British Museum for over 45 years and is a much

admired and respected world expert on kuneaoiform script and more generally on ancient languages of Samrian, Acadian

and Babylonian and also on ancient board games and uh Mesopotamian magic, medicine, literature and culture.

I should also mention that both on and off the mic, Irving was a super kind and fun person to talk to with an infectious enthusiasm for ancient history that of

course I already love but uh fell in love with even more. This is the Lex Freedman podcast. To support it, please

Freedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description where you can also find links to contact me, ask questions, get feedback, and so on. And now, dear

friends, here's Irving Thinkle.

Where and when did writing originate in human civilization? Let's go back a few

human civilization? Let's go back a few thousand years.

>> The first attempts at writing that we could call writing go back to the middle of the fourth millennium say around 3500 BC something like that. There were

people in the Middle East, individuals who lived between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers who had clay as their operating material for building and all sorts of other purposes. And eventually

as a writing support, they somehow developed the idea of the basis of writing which means that you can make a sign which people agree on on a surface that another person when they see it,

they know what sound it engenders. That

is the essence of writing that there's an agreed system of symbols that A can use and B can then play back either in their heads or literally with their

voice is a bit like a gramophone record.

So when it really began is a terribly terribly awkward question for us because the truth of the matter is we have no idea when anything began and all we can

say is that the oldest evidence we have is around 3,500 BC. But whether that was anywhere near the time or the stage when

this started off for for the first time seems to me very very unlikely.

So in among these the Mesopotamians around 3,500 they started to do this.

They made up signs which everybody understood and they could write simple pictographic messages. Foot is a foot, a

pictographic messages. Foot is a foot, a leg is a leg and barley is barley. And

then very very gradually they had the idea of how you could represent numerals. And then they had the idea

numerals. And then they had the idea that the pictures could also represent signs. And once they had the idea that

signs. And once they had the idea that you could write sounds with pictures, that's the crucial thing that a picture of a foot not only meant foot, but it meant the sound of the word for foot.

Once this happened, some probably very very imaginative and clever persons had a kind of light bulb moment when they realized that they

could develop a whole paniply of signs which could convey sound. And once you had that, you're liberated from

pictographic writing into a position where you can record language. So

language, grammar, and all the rest of it. before long proverbs and literature

it. before long proverbs and literature and all the other things that got written down. So it was a pretty

written down. So it was a pretty gigantic step whenever it was taken but we really have no idea when it was first taken but the first evidence we have presents a sort of clearish sort of

picture. It was simple and it got more

picture. It was simple and it got more complicated and then it became magnificent so that with all the signs a fluent and well-trained scribe could not only write down the Sumerian language

which was one of the native tongues of Iraq and or the Babylonian language which was one the other main language of Iraq but also any other language he

heard. So if somebody came speaking

heard. So if somebody came speaking French ahead of their time and spoke out loud, he could record with these signs the sound of French. And we have

examples of funny languages in the world around in the Bronze Age which were written in Q&A form purely by ear. And

often sometimes the scribes who recorded by dictation or by something wrote stuff they couldn't understand but somebody else could read and understand it. So

what you have is long before the alphabet when the alphabet was not even a dream um complex bewildering looking off-putting writing system which was

actually very beautiful flexible and lasted for well over 3 millennia probably closer to four millennia and it took a long time for the alphabet which anybody would say was much much more

useful and much more sensible to displace it. So, it's one of the major

displace it. So, it's one of the major stages of man's intellect because quite soon after the writing first took off,

the signs began to proliferate and someone said, "Hey, we haven't got a sign for this sound or we haven't got a sign for this idea." And so it began to

swell out and at some extremely remarkable stage, one probably only one person suddenly realized that if there was no control um they would grow

exponentially and exponentially until it was all nonsense and everybody had their own writing. And the second thing is

own writing. And the second thing is that no one could remember them unless they were written down in a retrievable way. So they invented not only writing

way. So they invented not only writing they invented lexography which means that early in the third millennium they put down all the things that were made of wood and all the

things that were made of reads and all the names of colors and of countries and all the gods and everything. They made a systematic attempt to make these signs

um to standardize them and to make them retrievable and of course to teach them.

And having exercised that rigor from the outset, it meant that the thing became streamlined and stayed more or less as it was all the way through for three

millennia or more because the stamp put on it by those early visionaries not only who um came up with the system and how it would work but to preserve it and

to safeguard it was fantastically effective. So it means that there were

effective. So it means that there were scholars in Babylon in the 3rd century or the second century when Alexander was there for example. If somebody dug up a tablet in very early writing, they would

have a pretty good idea what it meant.

They would recognize the signs even though they were so ancient and they'd see the relationships between them. So

you have a fantastically strong system where the spinal cord was structured in a lexographic regular

system. So lexography and what the signs

system. So lexography and what the signs were was jealously safeguarded and protected and it lasted fantastically.

>> We should say that the name of that system that lasted for 3,000 years is Kunea form.

>> Yeah. So in the 19th century about 1840 1850 they started to find these things on excavations in Iraq the big Assyrian cities and sometimes further south the

Babylonian cities. They found these clay

Babylonian cities. They found these clay tablets which in the ground lasted unimaginable lengths of time and they were all written in what we call

kuneaoiform script. And the kuneaoiform

kuneaoiform script. And the kuneaoiform part of it means wedge shaped because kunea in Latin means wedge. And when

they first saw these signs they realized that a cluster of marks broke down into um different arrangements of triangular

shapes. And it's most clear on the

shapes. And it's most clear on the Syrian reliefs where the writing is very big and you can easily tell that they were that shape. On a tablet the wedge is not quite so predominant. So that was

it. So they first called them cuniatic

it. So they first called them cuniatic or cuneaoiform and the word stuck. And

of course growing up in the British Museum and reading these things for a living becomes a kind of lifetime's work to make sure that everybody in the country knows what kuna means cuz once in a while you meet

somebody who never heard of the word at all and this is appalling. So people do survive however but it's an important mission because it's such an achievement

by man and so much knowledge was encapsulated in these lumps of clay because they used it for everyday things like letters and business documents and

contracts. This is one thing and then

contracts. This is one thing and then the kings wrote long elaborate accounts of their campaigns and their military activities.

And then there was proper literature, bell, le and magic and medicine and all other genre of literature that we would naturally list on a sheet of paper

in alphabetic writing what you would use writing for. They basically did and it

writing for. They basically did and it had the unexpected quality that most of these clay things lasted in the ground until now. So, however many hundreds of

until now. So, however many hundreds of thousands of tablets are in the world's museums and collections, there must be millions of them in the ground awaiting

excavation. So, um in a way that's a

excavation. So, um in a way that's a comforting thought cuz they're safe there and protected.

>> You said that the development of kuneaform of these tablets of written language is one of the greatest probably the greatest invention in human history.

How hard do you think it was to come up with this? And we should make clear that

with this? And we should make clear that that very specific element of encoding sound on the tablet. That's the genius

invention. Drawing a picture makes

invention. Drawing a picture makes sense. Okay. Here's, you know, barley,

sense. Okay. Here's, you know, barley, here's the sun, here's whatever the actual object.

>> Exactly.

>> But to actually write down sound >> is a genius invention. Well, I think it's rather paradoxical because the first generation or so of tablets that we have are written in

these pictographic signs where each sign means what it looks like. So, this is a very limited method of recording messages and it doesn't lend itself to recording grammar. And then the

recording grammar. And then the secondary phase as we understand it from archaeology is the perception that you could take these signs still meaning what they look like but also what the

word sounded like. So then you have all these wonderful ice cubes which express all the sounds of the language from which you can record words and and

grammar and everything else. Now the

thing is the received law from a seriology is it was that way round that first we had pictures and secondly we

had sound. Well, I have to say I find

had sound. Well, I have to say I find this very hard to believe because if you had a group of people in an environment

where it was compellingly necessary to make a system that you made marks on a surface which everybody could understand and use. Why wouldn't you start out with

and use. Why wouldn't you start out with signs that made sounds? Because

everybody speaks the same language, right? So you we they didn't have a b

right? So you we they didn't have a b cde e fg but they could easily work out all the vowels and consonants without naming them as vowels and consonants but the component parts. So they could have

had signs that started out because if you decided you had we have 26 let's say they had 50 signs that would create the sound they could write anything without

any further trouble. So I find it very bewildering that they started off with the least flexible and the least adaptable system of pictographs and then

they moved on to the sound. I don't know why they bothered with it. And my hunch is that the archeological evidence that we have on this score is ultimately

misleading because I think this that probably for a very very long time before the Sumerianss, people in the world, the world of what we call the Middle East were in contact. They

traded. They probably even had wars and they had messages between them. And I

think there was a longunning system of communication between people who didn't share a language for whom pictures would suffice. So if

merchants come and they have three sheep to sell, so they draw three little sheep, you know how much it is and what they are and so forth. And and so I think that what happened with the

Sumerianss with their pictographic signs is that those signs are right at the end of a very very very long period of time

when somebody thought what we can do is take these stupid inhibited no smoking signs and write language. That is what I think happened. That's what I think

think happened. That's what I think happened.

>> Is this a controversial statement?

>> Highly controversial. Highly contro.

Many many athereologists would leave the room.

>> Yeah.

>> But I'm not scared of controversy because it's natural. I if you think about it, it's natural because you don't have to have an alphabet to

divide your word into sounds. See, for

example, in Sumerian, you have a funny system of R. You have a root like do, which means to go, and then you have prefixes like e or moo or

ba. and they one's a passive, one's an

ba. and they one's a passive, one's an active and this and this. So when you have a sentence, you have one of the moob bar or e prefixes. Then you have the root and then you have things at the end. So it's called a glutinative by

end. So it's called a glutinative by people who like to make things look more important than they are. So you have the central thing. You slap stuff on the

central thing. You slap stuff on the beginning, slap stuff on the end, and each particle creates a bit of meaning.

So you have a long verb which tells you he would have done it if he could, but he couldn't kind of thing in in the form of the verb. But the thing is, if you wanted to write down, you and I decided to write the answer, the first thing we

would do is have a sign moo and then we'd have bar and then we'd have e because every 5 minutes people make those noises.

>> Yeah.

>> You see what I mean?

>> Yeah, absolutely. Do you think it's possible we might find much much older?

>> I do.

>> Kuneaform type tablets >> well or pictographic type tablets before the kunea form when they're drawing type. And I'll tell you why. Because

type. And I'll tell you why. Because

there's this marvelous site in Turkey called Gobeclete. You know about GBC?

called Gobeclete. You know about GBC?

Well, everybody knows about the buildings and the architecture and the skull. Everybody knows about it. If you

skull. Everybody knows about it. If you

go all the way through the photographs, which the archaeologists unwisely put online, you'll find in the middle of one color plate with lots of other things, a

round green stone like a scarab from Egypt. That's to say it has an arched

Egypt. That's to say it has an arched back and a flat bottom. And on the flat bottom there are hieroglyphic signs carved in the stone. Right? No one said

anything about it at all. But it's clear to me a that this was a stamp to ratify where the the carvings of the signs on

clay or some other ceiling material would leave an impression. It must be that. So this is about 9,000 BC.

that. So this is about 9,000 BC.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Now when I was a boy at university, my professor said to me that the reason you can writing evolved in Mesopotamia because they had complex cities with ziggurats and big buildings

and lots of people and they had to organize everything and so they invented writing to cope with it. Well, if they had to cope with that in Sumer in 3000

BC, they sure as hell had to do it at Geekbecepe because they hardly even begun to finish excavating the sites of Geekly. go on and on like Manchester and

Geekly. go on and on like Manchester and Newcastle United. And really um the old

Newcastle United. And really um the old rule would be you could not have architecture like that that without that planned and built according to principle

with all the different people. You

couldn't have that without writing in southern Iraq. So how come suddenly

southern Iraq. So how come suddenly 7,000 years earlier they do it there?

That and that green stone shows that they had writing. That was an official who sealed this, got the stuff or whatever it was or was his dad's name or whatever it is. Got a wiggly snake and a

wiggly this. That is pictographic

wiggly this. That is pictographic writing. Maybe even as phonetic. I don't

writing. Maybe even as phonetic. I don't

know. But it was writing thousands of years before in the south. And that's

what I think it is. You know, people came with metal from or or precious stones from Anatolia. They knew that in the south they had lots and lots of stuff. They wanted to trade. They had to

stuff. They wanted to trade. They had to communicate. And it's basically like

communicate. And it's basically like having a cigarette with an X through the middle. Everybody in the world knows

middle. Everybody in the world knows what that means. That they don't know what the word for cigarette is in this language or cancer or filter or tobacco.

It doesn't matter. It's that's

pictographic writing. We still use it and and it's it's above all kinds of mess. And I think that was the

mess. And I think that was the prevailing system because I honestly believe that the people at this time were not stupid. They weren't gorillas.

They weren't less advanced than we are.

They were probably indistinguishable from what we are. So you have merchants and wanderers and people who see let's go down the river and see where we end up and and people looking for money, looking for women, looking for

everything. I mean that's surely how it

everything. I mean that's surely how it was. But if you look at those Geckley

was. But if you look at those Geckley buildings with a skeptical eye how it could be. I mean the finish of it is

could be. I mean the finish of it is astonishing. The structure of it, the

astonishing. The structure of it, the vision of it. to the workforce and the tools and the organization, you know, what do they do it with a megaphone, your breakfast and all that

kind of thing? No way. No way.

>> So that's a really controversial statement.

>> At the time of Gobelepe, they may have been already a writing system.

>> There was because the thing is about it that it's it's a seal to ratify. It's

not just a squiggle on a pot and you can say, "Oh, that's just a piece of debt."

This is a finished thing with a flat surface. You press it down. say you have

surface. You press it down. say you have some contract, you have some building arrangement, some we paying for these bricks, whatever it was and the official person had to squash it down and it

leaves the impression I mean I am a great believer in Sherlock Holmes >> as a teaching system for intelligence and rationality and logic and thinking.

I read those stories a million times when I was a kid. And the thing about about them, one of the things which impressed me most of all was this point quoted by Holmes, not original to him,

that it is theoretically possible to infer the Niagara Falls from a raindrop.

>> That's a powerful statement.

>> It's a powerful statement. Well, that

seal from Geekly Tee is a raindrop from which I infer writing. And it's

perfectly possible they all wrote on flat leaves. After all, in many parts of

flat leaves. After all, in many parts of the world, that's what happens. So for

example, in the Indis Valley, people write the most abject nonsense about the Indis Valley writing system. But all we have is seals basically. So they are

also for ratification purposes and they have the name of the owner in three or four or maybe five signs and it's probably me son of my dad or milkman or

whatever it is. And it's obvious. It's

obvious that they had writing on a perishable material. They can't just

perishable material. They can't just have had inscribed stone seals and many parts of India today write on palm leaf.

Why should it be any different? So

people think you know well just cuz it's now it wouldn't be then. But actually

that argument is utterly utterly facious because the process of evolution is stymied left right and center by inertia. inertia is nearly as strong as

inertia. inertia is nearly as strong as evolution. And this is something that

evolution. And this is something that the people who talk about progress and ideas have no idea about. First of all, your whole line of work you're making me realize is a kind of like Sherlock

Holmes type of process. The deciphering

of the language archaeology of taking those pieces of evidence and trying to reconstruct a vision of that world. And

now you're making me realize that even all the kuneaform tablets we have is just a raindrop

compared to the waterfall of of thousands of years of humans.

>> We have a lot but it's nothing in comparison what existed. But not only that, see we don't have to decipher anymore. We can read Acadian or

anymore. We can read Acadian or Babylonian Sumerian pretty well fluently. That's not a problem. So the

fluently. That's not a problem. So the

information which you can get from these sources especially three millennia of sources is very very substantial very substantial but it means that a

seriologists have the um inbuilt idea that what we have is something like all there ever was which is absurd for example there's a period called the

earth three period where people lived in city states they wrote very small account tablets by the thousand and there were two or three major cities

where this is the way they lived. People

had to bring tithes and offerings and everything was recorded by what I always refer to and people sympathize with as the ancestors of the inland revenue because everything had to be written

down so that some schmuck could check it and fill out the ledger and some other schmuck above him could okay it so there was no funny business or no mistakes.

Now the thing is there are thousands of those tablets written in about 2,100 to 2,000 BC. Thousands of them about size

2,000 BC. Thousands of them about size of a box of matches. So people like to generalize about the Sumerianss at this time of the world. But they probably all

came out of two rooms because they were dumped when they were no longer needed in some kind of room.

And the archaeologists in the 19th century came down on these and then all the locals came and they bought dug them up and they sold them all over the place and they gone all over the world.

Thousands and thousands of them out of probably two storage rooms which is not a whole culture or a whole country or their whole history or their belief

systems. So our view of it is sued by the nature of the material. And

sometimes the material is opulent and benevolent but not always. And sometimes

the people who work with Sloo material don't even realize how Slude it is. I

mean, you know, it's quite remarkable.

>> So you in all your time of studying Kaoform tablets, do you sometimes late at night get a glimpse of the waterfall?

Like can you imagine?

>> Yes, I can imagine. I can imagine easily because once in a while a library is discovered in the 1850s at Nineve which was the Assyrian capital there was a fat

king king of the world called Asha Barnipal and he had a fantastic library and he promoted it he impounded tablets he had them brought in he wanted all the prevailing knowledge and all knowledge

from before under one roof it's a kind of like Alexandria thing so he was a trained scholar and this is what he did and they found In the 19th century, they

dug it up. Leard and those people. So,

what did they find? They found the tablets higgledy piggledy all over the floor of a huge room and in the corridors and everything and lots of

them broken and lots of them burnt.

So, ever since then until really quite recently, seriologists have spent all their people who work on these nit joining the bits together. And you have the story about

together. And you have the story about Gilgamesh and the goddess who falls in love with him in the garden and she wants to seduce him and dot dot dot you can't find a bit so you look for another bit. You look for another bit and

bit. You look for another bit and gradually they piece together the literature and the assumption has always been that if you put them all together again you'll have the whole library.

>> Mhm.

>> But it's the absolute opposite because what happened was that the Babylonians in the south in my opinion they they worked handin glove with the Elummites from Iran. They had a pinser

movement and they beat Assyria. They

conquered Assyria. They ran through the capital and they set fire to everything, pinched all the women and to all the jewelry and all the gold. And the people say that in a fit of peak, they

destroyed the library. But they wouldn't destroy the library because it was the giant brain from which the Assyrians ran a world empire and it had all the knowledge in the world. They destroyed

that. They spoke the same language. They

had the same writing system. They'd have

taken them all safely home. cart after

cart after cart. And I think what's left there is duplicates and broken things and things that got dropped and everything. And that's what everyone

everything. And that's what everyone thinks is it.

>> So this is also unc is a controversial project.

>> You're just nontoping.

It's common sense. You're going to get both of us can today.

>> But you see the thing you see the thing.

It's predicated on the assumption that what we have is what there only what there was. And this is such a fallacy.

there was. And this is such a fallacy.

It needs to be attacked left, right and center.

>> So a lot of the kunea form language is already deciphered.

>> Sure.

>> Can you speak to the the deciphering process? How hard is it? Maybe take us

process? How hard is it? Maybe take us to this place of uh for you yourself first learning the language, figuring out the puzzle of it. How does it feel

the how does it look like to to a brain that doesn't deeply understand it? And

how do you then piece stuff together?

Maybe you can go to the the early days sort of the the Rosetta Stone of Kao form also.

>> That's important. Well, the first thing is is that how the Kunoifor writing system works because the crucial point and once you see it is makes a lot of things clear is that they wrote in

syllables.

So if you take the English alphabet, which of course they didn't, you had the letter B, G, D, P, H, and so forth. They

couldn't write a consonant. They

couldn't do that. So what they did is they had a vowel before a consonant or one after. So you have ab and ba. But as

one after. So you have ab and ba. But as

they had four vowels, you had to have ab and ba, ib and b, and b, e and be.

>> Mhm. So you had the the range of things clustered around what we call a consonant. So they had all those for all

consonant. So they had all those for all the letters which gave them a basic system. There was much more to it than

system. There was much more to it than that and it was more complicated than that but we don't have to really go into it but basically if you are a Babylonian and um you want to write the word museum

which of course is one of the most important words in the English language and other languages too. So what you would do is you would write the syllable moo.

>> Yeah.

>> And then the sign z and then the sign.

So you split the word up into its component syllables. When you read it in

component syllables. When you read it in your mind, you squash them together into museum. That's the basic system. They

museum. That's the basic system. They

had other signs which gave you a clue as to the meaning and bits around the edge.

But it's basically salabic writing.

>> Mhm. So when you go to university to study kuneaoiform what you have to learn is all the signs

and all their values because unfortunately they didn't just have one for each they had multiple ones and the reason is not that they were mad or they

wanted to make life hell but because the syllables derived from the writing of Sumerian words. So the Sumerian

Sumerian words. So the Sumerian vocabulary had a lot of words that were probably differentiated by tone.

>> So you might have bar and then a rising a and then a lowering. And these signs all retain the bar value even though there were no tones. So it means if you look at a sign list, there's a lot of

signs. You have bar number one, which is

signs. You have bar number one, which is the common, then there's bar number two, bar number three, and you have to learn them all. And when you read, you have to

them all. And when you read, you have to learn how to do it. So when in the modern world if you go to university to to do a seriology which I hope you and all of your disciples will do as soon as

possible you actually have to cope with two languages the Sumerian and the Babylonian. Now the first thing is this

Babylonian. Now the first thing is this that the Babylonian language is a smitic tongue which although it's extinct

is connected to or related to Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopic, Syriak all that family of Semitic languages which are still alive. It's an early example

of one of those. So that when the decipherment came along, it was the Semitic dictionary that they fell back on to identify words, nouns, and roots.

The other language, which is Sumerian, the one when you stick bits in the beginning and stick bits at the end, is not only not Semitic. It's not related to any other known language.

>> Oh no.

>> Yeah. This is a bewitching thing. It's a

bewitching thing to me. And this is how to understand it because the languages that we study in the world today, linguists study, they more or less all

fall into a language group. So you have Indo-Uropean with Spanish, Italian, Latin Hittite and so forth. And so that's why French, that's one group, and you have Germanic,

and you have Savonic. And most

languages, even the far-flung ones, fall into what can be seen to be maybe big and airy groups. Their family like that.

There's not one for Sumerian. So this

means that 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 about

true. So that when writing arrives about 3,00 say 300 BC to write proper properly it means that

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. So we've got the one

happens. So we've got the one representative of this bizarre family that >> amazing.

>> It isn't. It's a very stimulating thing to imagine. I personally believe that

to imagine. I personally believe that neanderalars and early homo sapiens for sure had language. For sure they talked to one another. It's impossible that

they didn't. The point came when they

they didn't. The point came when they did. They did. And in the ant, thousand

did. They did. And in the ant, thousand years of rule living in Europe, they had to deal with the ice age. They all live together. They bring up their children.

together. They bring up their children.

You think they couldn't speak anything.

They have the same apparatus. And if you have a human brain, then it responds to stimulus. And the more stimulus there is

stimulus. And the more stimulus there is for communication, I mean, the idea that you and I are out hunting rhino and and and you say, "Lex,

shut up. I'm constant." Lex, Lex, and I

shut up. I'm constant." Lex, Lex, and I suddenly think, "Oh, I get it. You are

Lex." Right? You only have to do that once. Then you know who I am. So I know

once. Then you know who I am. So I know that I'm me and that you are you. So

people who say that they couldn't distinguish ego and and all that, it's absolutely stupid. If you cut your hand

absolutely stupid. If you cut your hand with a knife, you sure as hell experiencing.

You sure as hell do it hurts.

>> It hurts a lot. You might even bleed to death, but it's not somebody else's hand.

And it's your hand and it's your existence and your life that threatened.

You think people weren't conscious that they were an entity? I don't believe it.

And they probably had a way to express that with sounds.

>> Well, eventually, yes, names. I mean,

names. Names are things. And then you have a the idea that a label fixes to something. Then the light bulb has gone

something. Then the light bulb has gone on and next minute you have rhino and you have skin and you have babies and you have because I think you have an idea and the idea then drives the brain and the brain has another idea. It works

like fertility.

>> So what do you think is the motivation the primary driver of developing written language? Is it is it goes hand inhand

language? Is it is it goes hand inhand with uh civilization?

>> I think that the media in which it appears is when there's a lot of people living in an urban environment >> and w with with rival institutions or

the king or with the government or all those sorts of things. And that's why I think Geeklete must have been the same thing. I read somewhere that they're all

thing. I read somewhere that they're all nomads and they only came to go you know 3 months. I mean that cannot be true

3 months. I mean that cannot be true that they were nomads and they cannot be true to get the stone and someone has to draw on the ground the plan of the

building they have to work out how thick it is going to be how high it's going to be and I mean you know you can't just you know like that like gorillas

>> uh all right so deciphering the process of deciphering >> so when I started there were grammarss and sign lists and dictionaries everything was marvelous it was all basically deciphered. All you had to do

basically deciphered. All you had to do is get on with learning it. But at the beginning when the first tablets and bricks in Kunea form and stone inscriptions came to light, no one could

read them. But they knew they were

read them. But they knew they were writing, but they didn't know how to read them. And what happened was, like

read them. And what happened was, like you said before with the Rosetta Stone, it was something directly comparable because there was um an inscription of

one of the Persian kings halfway up a mountain in a place called Bisutun where this king Darius had written an

account of his successful career in Elilumite and in Babylonian and in old Persian triilingual version and old

Persian although it is a obviously a archaic form of the language Persian is still alive it was still alive in the 19th century so they since the old Persian was written in a very simple

style of kunea form they deciphered it they twigged it was old Persian they read it in Persian and they read the names Darush in old Persian and then

suddenly somebody realized that the other two columns about the same length >> brilliant >> what do you know and the thing is it said I am das the great King, king of

the working son of grandson of so there's a whole paragraph with repeated things in the Persian which they could understand. So what do

you know they're reiterated passages in the other two languages. So that was the key that that kind of the chisel that opened up kunoiform writing proper and

the thing was they soon twigged that the language of the Babylonian was a smitic tongue and this was so important. I

think the first word they discovered was the word for river which is naru in Aadian and nar in Arabic and Aramaic.

And when they realized that the word that corresponded to the Persian had this form, this was a gift a gift of gold because everybody immediately sees their Arabic and Hebrew dictionaries and

started leafing through looking for words that would fit in the context. And

they basically they deciphered this inscription in that sort of way. And of

course all the other inscriptions came in order and there were lots and lots of difficulties which had to be resolved.

But that's the basic thing. And without

that triilingual um I don't know what would have happened. I mean I suppose it's

happened. I mean I suppose it's conceivable that in the very modern world something might have happened but as it was it was done by sheer brain

power by very very clever persons just doing it and they they cracked it. The

Elumite language is much more difficult but they got a lot of it too. So it was a very romantic thing because the inscription was carved on a mountain face far above the plane and um Henry

Roinson who was a upstanding young British officer who claimed to decipher Cana form quite unjustifiably climbed up there with some miserable kid and made

squeezes of the whole thing overlooking the plane thousands of feet up in the air and brought those back and they were used in the decipherment. So it's very romantic.

>> Wait a minute. more controversial

statement from Muring today. Henry

Rollinsson doesn't deserve the credit for that.

>> No, I don't think he does. He's he's

he's called the father of a seriology, but I think he's the stepfather of a seriology because when he first got these inscriptions, he wrote a long book about it, which was almost entirely wrong.

And there was a clergyman in Northern Ireland called Edward Hinks who lived in a place called Kilerlay and had five daughters and ran this church

who was um possibly a card carrying genius if not jolly jolly clothes. And

what happened with with him was this.

There was um an ongoing competition well an ongoing challenge to decipher hieroglyphic writing which Sholon usually gets the credit for. And Hinx

was very interested in trying to decipher hieroglyphic ahead of the French and he ran into a sort of dead end at one stage and he thought he'd have a look at Kunea form to see if it was

helpful and at the same time he cracked it. He

worked out how it worked. He realized

that one sign can have more than one value of sound and of meaning because they are multivalent signs. I tried to shelter you from the horrible news, but

it actually it's not it's not a walk in the park. It takes about 5 years to to

the park. It takes about 5 years to to um you probably do it in about four probably.

>> That is a compliment. I think you just complimented me. Uh thank you. Thank you

complimented me. Uh thank you. Thank you

very much.

So what So you're saying one one sign that looks exactly the same might have different sounds given the context.

>> Yeah. And you have to choose the right sound and and and also different meaning as well because for example if you if you have a sign for hot word hot right

you you can't really have a picture sign for hot doesn't make sense but what they did is they did a drawing of a kind of um

complex thing with a brazer inside another sign which meant hot. So that

sign existed but it also meant other things as well and you had to choose the right one for the contest. is all a context to matter. I mean, it really is quite a matter for despair when you start ka form because on top of

everything else, they didn't leave gaps between the words. They're all

connected. That's really mean. Yeah. So

when you read um what you have to do you start with the first sign and you think of the sign list and you go through the values in your mind and there's next

sign and if one is bar and the next one is ab among other readings bar ab sounds like a syllable structure for a word and you go on like that.

>> So there are two things about it. One is

that if you want to you can master it.

The other thing is that the number of variables was restricted. They

controlled it. So it wasn't insane. So

in other words, if you learn the corpus and you learn how the signs are composed and you learn their different values, then you've got it down >> and off you go. And and um it's it's

very beautiful. I think it's it's

very beautiful. I think it's it's marvelous.

>> Can you in all seriousness take me back to the time when you were learning it?

What's the process of learning it? Well,

I had very abnormal upbringing because when I went to university um for about three years beforehand, I'd wanted to be an Egyptologist.

>> So, I'd read the grammar by gardener and was looking forward very much to studying ancient Egyptian. And what

happened was that I went up to the University of Birmingham where I went to university. And uh there was a man

university. And uh there was a man called Rd Clark who was an Egyptologist.

And Ronald Clark came in on the Monday and gave us one lesson about Egyptian sculpture or something like that. And

the next minute he next day he died.

Bang.

So, uh, the professor called me into his room and said, "Look, it's going to take me a while to get an Egyptologist. They

don't grow on trees." Um, but there's another person in this department who teaches another ancient language called Lambert, and he teaches Kunea form. So,

what I suggest is you go and do a bit of kunea form with professor Lambert, and then when I get an Egyptologist, you can convert back.

So, I go and knock on the door. Yes. Um,

so I went in and said, I want to learn cano form. And, uh, Professor Lambert,

cano form. And, uh, Professor Lambert, who was rather a Sherlock Holmes kind of figure aesthetic bony sarcastic cruel, >> cruel,

>> cruel, absolutely terrifying. Um, and I said, um, I I wanted to learn ka form.

and he wasn't at all pleased because this was a time in Britain when um professors resented having students to teach because it buttered into their research

time. It was that sort of arrangement.

time. It was that sort of arrangement.

Anyway, I started it off and after about I don't know maybe one or maybe two lessons, I knew this was going to be my life's work. So that's what happened to

life's work. So that's what happened to me.

>> It was an amazing thing. So he gave me a list of signs to learn basic signs. So I

did and the next couple of days and then we came in and he we started reading.

>> So given the complexity of the signs, why did Kuneaform last 3,000 years, the most successful writing system ever?

>> Fair question. There are several factors. One is the famous factor of

factors. One is the famous factor of inertia.

>> Mhm. The second thing is that people who could read and write and were in charge of archives and with the clarks in the

temple and the um writers for the king and everything commanded a very great deal of power because most of the public couldn't.

>> So they reserved to themselves knowledge understanding philosophical inquiry. I mean, no doubt

philosophical inquiry. I mean, no doubt it went on in pubs and things, but they were they were in charge. They had

everything under lock and key and they were I think the scribal schools are rather claky. They were certainly um

rather claky. They were certainly um clicky in the sense of Oxford and Cambridge being rivals, that sort of thing. They had that sort of idea and it

thing. They had that sort of idea and it was in no one's interest whatsoever.

Nobody would ever concede any interest in the idea of literacy for all. This

would be it would never be thought of and it would be anathema and so if you got on a soap box on a Saturday afternoon and say ah enough of this we have to teach the children

>> they'd be taken away I think >> so we're getting in these tablets the output of the intellectual class a very small fraction of humans so we're getting just the Oxford and the

Cambridge >> we are except this that when you went to scribal school you had to learn Samrian and Aadian the language languages properly and all the vocabulary and the grammar.

>> Mhm. So some boys probably had a lot of trouble doing this and you know they were okay but then there ain't going to be no geniuses. And I think the

situation in the school was that the teachers farmed out the kids who would actually rather have been outside playing football but could read and

write to earning their living doing lowlevel reading and writing. That's to

say writing contracts, letters, everyday things for people because no one could read and write. So you had to get a scribe if you're going to marry your daughter off and you get all the

witnesses about the presents and all this all the thing had to be done for 4 days. So the writer would come and and

days. So the writer would come and and do so your your medium-level writers would serve that requirement and very

talented or clever or intellectual students would be encouraged to go into one of the literary professions which

would be so to speak, law, working for the king, working for the church, I mean the priesthood. So

all those things which were dependent upon archives and writing they would find their nevo and also um architecture because if a big building had to be built then somebody had to know about

loadbearing things and brick measurements and so some of them went into that kind of work and also probably some of them went into running the army and they had to move stores and animals

and so they they found their neo and some of them were intellectually very able indeed And they went into um the disciplines of on the one hand

astrology but more seriously into astronomy and theoretical grammar because they they had treatises about the relationship between the two languages

and how they worked and different parts of speech and and they wrote learned commentaries as well what words meant.

So there was an intellectual highlevel top and then there were lots of professional scribes and then the the kids who left school as soon as possible and uh did all that like today. I

apologize to be philosophical but Winkenstein the philosopher said that the limits of our language is the limits of our world. So to which degree did the

languages that were encoded in Kunea form define human civilization would you say? what what were the what were the

say? what what were the what were the things that were complicated to express and therefore were not expressed often?

>> That's a really interesting question. So

um in terms of uh richness of vocabulary and richness of verbal subtlety, I think Babylonian rivals Arabic and of

course English. You know, in other

course English. You know, in other words, you can say whatever you want in English.

>> However subtle it might be, even if people didn't understand the subtlety, you can because the tools are fantastic.

And Arabic has lots of synonyms and lots of devices and all the same in Babylonian. It was a fullyfledged

Babylonian. It was a fullyfledged literary language. The question about

literary language. The question about about whether the language put a stop to further things as which is basically what you're asking

>> is immensely complicated. But the one thing that strikes me as relevant is that a very huge proportion of scholarly

literature in Mesopotamia, it takes the form of omens because they believed that events accidental or deliberately stimulated had implications for what was

going to happen.

>> And they took omens from things in the sky and uh things in the street and every single thing. If you were a well-qualified divine, they would have

this significance. Right?

this significance. Right?

Now, there are thousands of lines of omens of all different kinds. And in

Aadian, it says, for example, if a lizard runs across the breakfast table, the queen will die. So, if you translate the Aadian this way, the word if verb

and everything, if that, then this. So

there are thousands of thousands of lines translated in many books about omens where if this happens that will happen. So this is how is understood by

happen. So this is how is understood by my colleagues.

Well, this is absolutely impossible because if you are you're the you're the chief diver of the king and you open up a sheep to take a liver out and examine it according to the if the queen's going

to die and the king's there, you're not going to say, uh, the queen's going to die. I mean, you're going to like a

die. I mean, you're going to like a fucking idiot if she doesn't die. And if

she does die, you're going to be responsible. So, all you can ever do and

responsible. So, all you can ever do and ever, ever have been able to do is to say there's a sign here that says that the queen could die, meaning could die,

not will die. And therefore, the requisite ritual or magic must immediately swing into action to defer the danger. So the point is that a

the danger. So the point is that a equals b is never true. It means that with a b could be, might be, ought to

be, should be, could be true. All those

subtle things. So that the diver who works from the king must have been a philosopher who looks at the king, he looks at the king and he knows what the

king wants him to say. So he has to tell the king what he wants to hear. He has

to tell the king if it's bad news in such a way that he doesn't mind or he won't worry. It's the most beautiful

won't worry. It's the most beautiful thing. It's so subtle. It's it's like a

thing. It's so subtle. It's it's like a it's like a violin conc. It can never have been a equals b for a minute. So

the medical texts say if you do if a man has this you do this he drinks this he'll get better. Right? He says he'll get better. So you ever met a doctor who

get better. So you ever met a doctor who will say you do this you'll get better.

No they say all being well you'll be back on your feet or I've seen this kind of condition many times everything should go fine. You should get better you should be better soon but never you will get better cuz what happens if you

die where are you?

>> The lawyers will show up.

>> Absolutely. So this means that not expressable in Aadian grammar are these modal verbs.

>> Mhm. could, might, should, ought, they can't be expressed grammatically. But it

is impossible. There was such a magnificent literary language where they didn't have these subtleties. It's

utterly impossible. And if you translate he will um in a literary text he might then the whole text is different. The

whole text is different.

>> Yeah. Absolutely. And they don't. My

colleagues translate that. It says in the grammar books like that automatically there's no self appraisal of the folly of it.

You have said that translation is part archaeology, part detective work, part poetry. Can we just speak about

poetry. Can we just speak about translation and the art of it a bit more?

>> Yes.

>> I mean it's such a such an incredible discipline just like you said hinted at just a subtle variation in a single word can change everything. Well, you know,

the truth about translation is that you never really have a word in one language which precisely equates another.

>> You never do. They're always a kind the best you can do and sometimes it makes no difference and sometimes it's really quite misleading. And so

quite misleading. And so what people do when they learn Aadian is they learn the Aadian word and they learn the English translation. Right?

You have the paras to divide. So

whenever you have the verb parasu is some form of divide or division but actually it's not because divide is like the primary root but there's maybe 10 nuances

of of what that can mean in English where the one at the bottom and the one at the top you'd hardly know they were connected and the Chicago dictionary which is such a magnificent thing when you come to the museum and see me I'll

show you this Chicago it's the most salient and important thing that came out of America in all its history is the Chicago Assyrian dictionary which is this long. There's only a one rival to

this long. There's only a one rival to it for cultural importance which is the electric guitar of course but the two of them I think are your countrymen's

greatest achievements.

>> It's the pride of our nation. Those two

things >> the very thing >> Chicago diction can you I'm sorry to take the tangent. What is the Chicago dictionary? It started in the 20s and

dictionary? It started in the 20s and they made a dictionary of the Babylonian language a a to zed so to speak and it's it's as long as this table it's

magnificent thing and this big and there the people who worked on it were real translators so they knew that it wasn't lexically a means b so if you have

something in a proverb you the meaning is going to be a bit different from in a letter and you know so people really really understand oadian they really But this thing about

about the modal verbs is an interesting conundrum to me because um there's no way it's reflected in the writing. So I

can only assume that there was some kind of drawing out of the vowel in a verb meaning could you know like you saying might do it you know something like

that. Anyway so nowadays we it's not a

that. Anyway so nowadays we it's not a decipherment that's the job. It's just

reading. And if you have lots of tablets to work on like on a dig, it's very exciting if they come out of the ground and no one's looked for them before you know it's your job. And if you're a

competent deriologist, um you should be able to sight read more or less except most say a letter or something like that, but most documents

have some damage. So you have to learn how to inter interpret stuff and also some literature is very difficult because of technical vocabulary and they had technical vocabulary and unusual

words.

>> So you can do all of that. You can

kind of uh figure out the technical complexities. You can figure out the the

complexities. You can figure out the the noise meaning missing pieces.

>> Yeah. Sometimes you can calculate to what it ought to be, make a reasonable suggestion and this dictionary which I was talking to you about is such a

fantastic tool because a lot of people worked on it for for it was the national endowment for the humanities and it was for decades and decades of work and most of the world's best seriologists

collaborated on it. So the quality of translation and understanding is really extraordinary. What are some things

extraordinary. What are some things you've read from that time? Is there

some jokes? Is there some love letters?

>> There are one or two letters about from a chap to a woman about, you know, you are very beautiful and your lips are like radishes and your ears are like walruses and things, but I mean there

are some things like that. And there's a kind of street drama in Babylon in 4th century BC, something like that, when there must have been actors who did this

in the street. And it's it's it's it's Marduk and and Sarapanum's wife and another woman. Marduk's having an affair

another woman. Marduk's having an affair with this other >> oh no >> goddess >> and Sopan is jealous and the women fight in the street and heard insults of one

another and you know slot bucket and all this kind of stuff is hilarious and it must have been a bit like a sort of vi opera without the music I suppose. I

don't know. But anyway, it starts off when um Salonimum is in the room and Marduk is in bed with this other goddess on the roof and she can hear. You could

say it was an eternal human issue.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Love, heartbreak, jealousy, all that >> between deities also.

>> Yeah.

>> Because deities are only modeled on human beings after all. So

>> yeah, deities is grandiose way of expressing human affairs, human behaviors, human ways. Yeah.

Indeed, >> in the writing, what was their relationship to the divine relationship with the divine? Well, the first thing to say is that they had a large pantheon

of gods.

So, there were three gods at the top, sometimes called Anu, Enlil and A. There

were three gods at the top and hundreds of other gods and goddesses.

And you have the situation that I think lots of small villages and towns had their old ancient gods and eventually they all worked into a kind of

theological system like a phone book and the lesser minor gods were amalgamated and then they were given jobs in the households of the big gods. So there was a sort of structure.

So you had this in the background a big sweeping theology like you have in the world today in some parts of the world.

And um this was the main system. And the

main gods were concerned with the ruler and the fate of the country. And another

god was concerned with illness and um the dead and what happens to the dead. And they had other specialtities. And they all had their

specialtities. And they all had their own temples. And when a baby came into

own temples. And when a baby came into the world um probably this was universally true.

the baby was put under the tutilage of one or other of the gods. Sometimes you

know the royal family they were the big shots but sometimes not or the ones that were in the family or something like that. So people had grew up with the

that. So people had grew up with the idea that among all of them there were special ones for the family and they had a special one who was supposed to look

after them. That's sort of basic idea.

after them. That's sort of basic idea.

But the trouble is since gods are as you say human beings on a larger scale they can be forgetful or uninterested or on

holiday and there are lots of ways that you have to prompt your make little sacrifices and little bribes so they do their job and keep an eye on you. So

they had that kind of um slightly practical view of gods that they were a bit unpredictable great when they were there but not always there. sort of

idea. And um I also believe this that a lot of people in the world today who did not have the disadvantage of growing up in a stifening religion but are just

normal people get a lot more interested when they're really ill or when they have a big disaster all of a sudden. Um

God or gods seem a lot more important than they do normally.

So that few people walk about in a state of religious awe and a good proportion of clergymen I've ever met don't do that either. It's a kind of conception that's

either. It's a kind of conception that's not actually based on reality that the individual's response to religious

stimula fluctuates and is varied and is often a response to need. It doesn't

come from nothing. I mean people don't suddenly feel I got to thank the Lord for the rainbow or something like that.

I think this probably true today. I mean

when you read the investigations they make of religion today. Christianity in

this country is on the decline because people who are supposed to be Christians say they aren't anymore. They're

atheists. So the people who say I go to church and I believe and everything is a relatively small number of people. So

now this is the situation which is quite remarkable if you think about it. The

Lord knows what the consequence will be for the human race. Whether religion

will balance out, whether it will die off, who knows?

>> I think it's an ancient technology that has proven across millennia to give a set of tools to humans to contend as you as you said with

suffering that's a part of life. So when

mo those rare moments come when you have to deal with deep pain, loss, suffering, heartbreak, all those things.

>> Yeah.

>> Looking up to the sky and asking questions and trying to figure out the answers in your conversation with the divine.

>> I think that's true. But I think in Mesopotamia it was different in terms of its potency and immediiacy because there's no skyscrapers in Iraq. You

know, if you live in southern Iraq and you sleep on the roof and there no lights at night, you know, you're under the stars, you can see everything because of no smog and everything like

that. And the idea that the gods are

that. And the idea that the gods are there watching, it's not like a big artifice like it is here. It just

doesn't ring true here. You can't come to it and really believe in it. Whereas

these people didn't have to really believe in it because it was it. It's

the obvious practical part of life.

They're right there.

>> Yeah. But it's like they didn't believe in ghosts. They took them for granted.

in ghosts. They took them for granted.

And they didn't believe in the gods.

They took them for granted. This is a different mechanism because nobody here in the world today takes those things for granted. Just the opposite. But I

for granted. Just the opposite. But I

think that's how it worked. So you

didn't have people wrestling with the idea of whether the gods really exist or that whether they really care about me.

They gave them a nudge when it was necessary.

And they might offer a this, they might offer a that, but they it was this it was the system. It was the prevailing system. And I think it's an important

system. And I think it's an important difference. And also that thing about

difference. And also that thing about ghosts is that it's clear from the inscriptions all of them that I managed to find that nobody ever asked themselves,

did do these things exist or not? Or did

I really see them or not? Or did I not?

They didn't. They didn't. They just took it all for granted.

>> What are ghosts? Is it usually ancestors?

>> Um, well, everybody, everybody who died in bed naturally or peacefully, what we call their ghost, went down to the nether world

and there they were. So, they buried people jolly quick um for obvious reasons and like they do in Islam and Judaism today, it's the same kind of

idea. and uh the spirit of the person

idea. and uh the spirit of the person went down through the gates to the netherworld and stayed there.

So that's the basic situation. And

people in their houses had actual burials under the courtyard and they had a thing where you pour stuff down a hole fluid and food kind of symbolic

offerings to the to them.

>> So is that a way to lessen the impact of mortality? I don't know because you know

mortality? I don't know because you know that everyone's going to die. I think

the real tragedy would be is if we're not supposed to. That would be the tragedy. But every single person

tragedy. But every single person is going to die. So all relationships have this finite clause in them. So if

you're very fond of somebody or you love somebody and they die, it's kind of infantile to whine about it ever after because what do you think was going to

happen? Either you or them, you know, I

happen? Either you or them, you know, I I always see it like that. I don't feel grief when people die.

>> It is infantile. But I got to tell you something about human beings. We're all

kind of infantile all the way through from, you know, we don't stop being infantile after we're infants. It's it's

one thing to know it, you know, theoretically and it's another thing to know it know it like this thing ends. This ride ends

ends. This ride ends >> but that's the pain. It's the fact that the whole thing ends. And when people fall off the edge, >> they fall off the edge.

>> So yeah, the knowledge that it ends is the painful thing, not the actual moment of the ending. Yeah. Many times what makes moments really precious is that they're going to be gone. I think that's

not a trivial thing for us humans to really contend with. I think religion, religious thought, the divine, I think, help with that.

>> I I think the big mistake for mankind was the creation of monotheistic religions because they brought evil into the world because if you believe in a

monotheistic religion, it means I'm right and you're wrong if you don't. So,

it's already on that footing. That's

>> very dogmatic. Yeah,

>> dogmatic and it's led to everything.

Inquisitions and this, you know, all this kind of stuff. It's all as a result of it that one religion is superior and the other should be stamped out and all that. And in my opinion, the

that. And in my opinion, the monotheistic religion has generated the most fantastic amount of non-religious feeling. Whereas when you have all the

feeling. Whereas when you have all the different gods and have different specialtities and the ones you like and the ones everybody likes and they have their temples and their offerings. It

was very interesting to me to go um into a temple in Kolkata when I went to there with my wife Joanna. We went into the temples and saw how they were and I think they must be very much like the

ones in Mesopotamia. So there was never anything about them which affronted people's individuality or or or I mean there's no religious prejudice or even racial prejudice in

antiquity. All these things are modern

antiquity. All these things are modern disadvantageous matters. If you think

disadvantageous matters. If you think what's done in the name of religion, it is absolutely staggering.

>> So let's talk go to literature because uh we didn't really mention literature much except you did briefly mention Epic of Gilgamesh. Yeah.

of Gilgamesh. Yeah.

>> So that was written in Kunea form. It's

one of the earliest works of literature.

>> That's right.

>> Uh can you tell me about this work?

>> Yeah. Well, we know it best from this Assyrian library set of tablets. There

are 12 of them. It's a 12 tablet work.

It's quite long. And Gilgamesh is the hero of it. But the literature, we know it from earlier texts and we know that Gilgamesh lived. He was a real person.

Gilgamesh lived. He was a real person.

He was a king in Uruk and he was one of those people who lived after their death in the world like Alexander for example.

So there were stories about Gilgamesh when he was alive. There were stories about him afterwards and they firstly they were oral literature not written down at all and then around

the 1800s people started to write them down in Samrian or Babylonian. So there

was a corpus and eventually they were woven into this long 12 homeriic type thing about the adventures of Gilgamesh.

So it is certainly literature and um it's to do with humanity and immortality and um man in the hands of the gods and um incorporates lots of interesting

exciting stories. It's very Hollywood

exciting stories. It's very Hollywood kind of thing and you can see within it um even in the sophisticated nine

version its roots are in oral literature because when somebody speaks it says Gilgamesh opened his mouth to speak and addressed his friend Enkidu and then there's a speech and then Enkidu opened

his mouth and addressed his friend Gilgamesh. Well, when you're reading a

Gilgamesh. Well, when you're reading a story, you don't need that.

And that must be because of when there was when there was a enacting of an oral thing a narrator would say and it suddenly got frozen into the text. So

it's it's very strange thing because if you're reading it is obvious that one person speaks and the other person speaks and and they always have this complicated thing stuck in the text. So

it must be an echo of presumably you have your protagonists um enacting their timeless matter with a with a and the person who's writing it

down says and then Gilgamesh said you know like like in a like in a script >> I mean what what can you say about this the the telling of stories in written

form during that time? Do you think that too stretched back in time?

>> I do. I think the fireside narrative matter. You know, when we were kids, it

matter. You know, when we were kids, it would be twerps with a guitar um sitting around a fire on holiday. But that

mechanism when people gather after dark when there is a fire and talk is the sort of environment where narrative accounts flourish naturally among human beings.

>> Stories telling a story. It doesn't have to be pragmatic. It can be literary in in a way.

>> Yeah. either a human person like Gilgamesh or stories about the gods and someone sees the Milky Way and they think there's a god riding a chariot up it and then they have a story about you

know and all those sorts of things and or whatever it would be but I think probably you have to allow for a strong creative

principle surfacing in homo sapiens at a quite early age because the paintings on cave walls you try drawing a running

antelope in color on a wall. I mean the quality of the workmanship of the artistic ability is

unsurpassable. It's not just good. So

unsurpassable. It's not just good. So

how is that an explicable thing at this very early date? It means

that among all the population you have imbecile and Einstein's and somewhere along the line you have Rembrandt. And I

imagine that half the cake cave paintings in Europe were done by one person. I mean they you got the

person. I mean they you got the impression every family had a genius painter. It's impossible. Probably there

painter. It's impossible. Probably there

was a person who went from place to place doing these paintings because they were so could draw straight away accurately like that. But the they are a

distillation of creative artistic ability plus skill. So this this is right at the pretty early stage is it not the cave painting material. So if

you consider the human stock which encapsulates such ideas ever after then you have to reckon with that you have to reckon with that very creative

very creative people. So the function of stories to tell the young and um about what happened and about famous battles

or when the flood came or how people learn to make fire or you know how we invented the wheel all those sorts of

things everybody put puts down as but that's presumably what absolutely happened and you have the capacity for people to adore and to respect among

their own kind people of astounding ability. There must have been hunters

ability. There must have been hunters who were ferociously quick and you know wrestle with polar bears and all that kind of and all this stuff would be gristed the narrator thing and things

got more complicated and more sophisticated. So lessons might be

sophisticated. So lessons might be incorporated or lessons might come out of them unintentionally because if you tell a story without a moral, it is usually a moral if you if you think

about it >> and many of those stories are sadly lost to time or not yet found.

>> You mentioned floods and speaking of stories that have been lost and found.

You're well known for a lot of things.

One of them is decoding the so-called ark tablet. Yeah, that was a challenge

ark tablet. Yeah, that was a challenge because it's really hard to read.

>> You got to tell me the story. This uh

ancient Babylonian clay tablet dating 1700 BC which contains a flood narrative that predates the biblical story of Noah by a thousand years >> at least.

>> At least.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. Well, you got to tell me the full story.

>> So, the full story is like this.

Visitors used to come to the museum um to ask questions of the experts who worked there and one would be on duty periodically and sometimes people would bring objects, sometimes they'd ask

questions and somebody once came in with a whole load of objects including this tablet which to cut a long story short I identified pretty much straight away as

being part of the flood story. It was a tablet about 8 in by 3. Not the whole flood story which is the complex narrative which ended up in the

Gilgamesh narrative much much later. But

this one was an early narrative in which the point was taken up where the gods in heaven had decided that the population

of Mesopotamia needed to be wiped out because they were so noisy.

>> This was the expression. and the gods couldn't sleep after lunch sort of thing. So they decided they would write

thing. So they decided they would write them out and create something quieter that worked harder. So this was the basic mechanism and they had different ways of doing it. And then the most

effective one was they were going to send a flood to wipe them all out. And

one of the gods, the number three in the triumvirate thought this was a deplorable idea. So he took it upon

deplorable idea. So he took it upon himself to warn this person called Atraasis who lived in Mesopotamia to

build a boat to rescue life when the waters came. And in it he told him the

waters came. And in it he told him the shape of it and the materials he would need and how much he would need of the materials um so he could do it safely.

And in the 60 lines of the tablet all this stuff was there. It was like a blueprint to build this boat. And the it was is extraordinary because it was

round the boat. Um and everybody who knew their Bible the arcs sort of coffin shape kind of affair and nobody thought

of it being a round boat. And um

the fact is that round boats um weren't used in Mesopotamia on on the rivers corals that's to say because for transporting things and um they would

never sink. They were very

never sink. They were very appropriate and and so in this story it was decided it was going to be a giant coral a really really big one that would

never sing and the male and female animals could go in and the Adraasi's wife and his three sons and so forth could go in and everything would be there and it would float on the water

>> and when it came down they said we'll start all over again. So it it's it's got very many points in common with the the description of the flood in Genesis.

And of course so did the one in Gilgamesh. So in 1872

Gilgamesh. So in 1872 there was a um an a seriologist in the British Museum called George Smith and

he was a very very talented reader. And

in 1872, he discovered that one of the tablets from the Nineveh library we were talking about before had on it a passage which ran in parallel with Gilgamesh

about the waters coming and the boat and everybody floating. And even to the

everybody floating. And even to the point that when the rain stopped and the ark came to rest on a mountain that the hero of this thing in Gilgamesh who was

called Napishim released a bird three times to see whether the trees had come up and the first one came back and the second one and the third one didn't. So

he knew that. So this was not only in the epig of Gilgamesh but it was also in the book of Genesis. So what it meant was that it wasn't you couldn't have two

stories. It wasn't two stories about the

stories. It wasn't two stories about the same thing. It was literary dependence.

same thing. It was literary dependence.

It was literary dependence. One was

locked into the other. The text of the Hebrew Bible from whenever it was written down. Of course, nobody knows

written down. Of course, nobody knows quite when, but whenever it was, it was about the same time as the one from Nin, about the 7th century, 6th, something like that, that the that the time

interval between the Gilgamesh version from Nineveh and the Hebrew Bible is not like a big expanse of time. So, there

was an argument that one goes this way and one goes that way. But when this tablet came in a thousand years old, nobody believes the Bible was written in

1700 BC.

So the primacy of the Mesopotamian matter was established. And it's

important because you never get floods in Jerusalem.

You just don't. But in Mesopotamia, they had floods. The rivers, sometimes there

had floods. The rivers, sometimes there wasn't enough water. Sometimes it was too much. Sometimes it was far too much

too much. Sometimes it was far too much water. So the mechanism that the waters

water. So the mechanism that the waters could be used as a destructive force by the powers that be is a plausible Mesopotamian mechanism and it's based in

a sort of sense in my opinion in reality I think there must have been some tsunami once most people were drowned and those who survive were in boats obviously and then afterwards nobody

ever forgot it and it went on and on. I

mean uh there actually could have been a catastrophic event of a large >> not the whole world cuz people >> but just enough to imagine >> yeah sweeping down to the Persian Gulf and you know the flat plains everything

would be destroyed all the houses will be destroyed and animals will be drowned and >> this is an incredible discovery. Do you

think it's possible that this is the original? There are flood myths in many

original? There are flood myths in many cultures. I believe this. The

cultures. I believe this. The

Mesopotamians had a deep-seated horror of dependency on water when they couldn't control it. They were fearful of it.

And they had a rainbow in Babylonia like in the Bible as a proof that the disastrous flood would never happen again. But I think there must have been

again. But I think there must have been one episode of this kind, maybe 5,000 years before the tablet, 10,000. It

doesn't matter because with the passage of time nothing happens in that part of the world. So something will be alive

the world. So something will be alive grandfather to grandson before you go to sleep and remember my boy you know you only have to be careful because

otherwise and all that stuff for sure bogey man stuff it never quite died out in their conscious minds.

So I think that when the Judeans from Jerusalem after the destruction of the temple and the by the Babylonians and the route of the priesthood and

everything, the king and the others went over land to Babylon as refugees and they had to live there for three generations of time under Nebuchadnezzar's reign. So I believe

Nebuchadnezzar's reign. So I believe that the text of the Bible was written then because if you read the Bible attentively, which I can't say I do on a regular basis, but if you do read it

dispassionately, um you have the mechanism that the early books of the Bible explain to the reader how it is that these people are in such

a mess because they're supposed to be the chosen people doing all that. Look

at they haven't got a temple. They

haven't got a country. they're all

washed up and everything like that. So I

think that what happened was was it's a complex thing but the Judeans from Jerusalem they spoke Hebrew but they

also spoke Aramaic right the two languages their sister languages and the Babylonians spoke Babylonian and they also spoke Aramaic and they all wore the same kind of clothes and they all had

brown skin and when the all these refugees from Jerusalem were milling around in Babylonia they would have intermarried and disappeared within no

time at all. And the authorities who were there prevented this by drawing up a kind of charter of their history,

explaining things from the beginning of time up until now, how it happened and what happened and it was all intentional.

So that is in my opinion the driving force behind the Hebrew texts. And the

thing about it is that they didn't have in Jewish philosophical tradition stuff about creation and the beginning of the world.

And they took Babylonian ideas which they learned when they were there and they recycled them.

So whereas the Babylonians decided that the gods were going to wipe out the noisy persons, when the Jewish philosophers got this narrative to

recycle about about the vengeful almighty, he was in the Old Testament very unpleasant and vengeful person. It

was because of sin. It wasn't because of racket and playing the radio. It was

sin. So they took one narrative and they recycled it for their own purposes. The

flood is a useful tool to to punish people for whatever X is.

>> That's exactly right. And something else is this. Something else is this. Right.

is this. Something else is this. Right.

You have five days to build the ark or whatever it is or two weeks to build the ark. So the clock goes tick tick tick

ark. So the clock goes tick tick tick tick tick. And about a third of the

tick tick. And about a third of the films that come out of Hollywood are the world's going to be demolished by aliens and you've got 24 hours to think of a cure. Tick tick tick tick tick tick

cure. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick. is that that narrative is

tick. is that that narrative is irresistible that one man can save the world if he's lucky in time from disaster. So it starts off with Pishim

disaster. So it starts off with Pishim and it goes on to um Noah and then it goes on to Hollywood.

>> Do you think this arc in the tablet actually was ever built?

You did build a replica one-third the size.

>> Yeah.

>> And you uh people should check out you tell the story of that wonderfully. Now,

what did you learn from building this replica? And do you think the actual ark

replica? And do you think the actual ark existed?

>> No, I don't think so. I think it's a literary construction out of the reality that people who did survive were on boats. I mean, they had boats for sure,

boats. I mean, they had boats for sure, and you might wake up in the Persian Gulf and never know what happened, but you know, it's a literary

moral principle teaching narrative. And

look, missionaries take it all around the world. That's the other thing. See,

the world. That's the other thing. See,

there this is this is the mystery of it that you have flood stories everywhere.

And some of them are from medalsome missionaries who have all these innocent little kids sitting on benches and and I'm going to tell you a story like that.

So it moves into this consciousness and it gets recycled and it gets recycled.

So this is one thing and then also there probably are spontaneous ideas because it's not so complicated or so amazing that independently people would have such a narrative after all you know like

the the great river in China floods and everybody gets so that it's not at all surprising but what was so shocking for George Smith who was such a clever

person is to read for the first time on this tablet from Ninovi long before the one that I discovered came to light about the three birds being released one

after the other and that that was the clincher that the two stories were locked together and lots of clergymen got very miserable about it and didn't know what to make of it. So that's

that's a definitive proof that there's a literary >> literary I think literary link I think so >> and I mean these puzzles that are then

connected but the the ark you discover a thousand years so that means that story of the flood

has been told many many times across that span to you know >> yeah do your homework or the flood is going to That's right.

>> To all the >> That's right. And every time somebody built a coracore and they didn't do the waterproofing right?

>> Yeah.

>> You know what will happen? It'll be out on the river and that will be your lot.

You know, I I think so. I think it was a I there there's a certain amount of evidence that in Mesopotamian society,

people talk about the time before the flood and after the flood. And it's like when I was a boy, people used to talk

about before the war, we used to and now we we do this that it's a kind of cataclysmic cut across history which

provides a a ruler. So things are either before it or after it because there's a king list for example where they wrote down the names of all the kings all the way back to the beginning including

kings before the flood. They knew about that. They have their names and their

that. They have their names and their great regal years or thousands of years.

Fascinating.

>> So there's a guy named Graham Hancock who talks about the younger Jesus hypothesis 10,000 BC that there was an asteroid that hit Earth and melted the

ice sheets and that created a flood in North America. So that means an actual

North America. So that means an actual cataclysmic global event that then as all the different civilizations sprung

up, they all carried that knowledge, that memory. That's his idea. What

that memory. That's his idea. What

probability would you assign to that?

>> I would say negligible because I regard it as a literary matter >> which is not predicated on the existence of flood in people's minds. But I do

believe that the story in Mesopotamia owes its inception to a disastrous flood. But nothing global, nothing that

flood. But nothing global, nothing that touched America or China or Birmingham.

So I I I don't have any sympathy with that. But people have made drilled a

that. But people have made drilled a cause and in I don't know all over. I

I'm not interested in all that stuff. is

to my mind. It's a literary topos of great potency of irresistible potency because everybody identifies with the idea of being in bed and someone knocks on the door says get up. You got to

build a boat and this is what you're going to need and you got to get on with it sunshine or we're all sunk. I mean

what are you going to do? The most

interesting thing is this Atraases in the 1700 text, he wasn't a king and he wasn't a sailor or a boat builder. So

how comes this clever god who wants to find someone to build? Wouldn't you go for a look in the yellow pages for a boat building company and say, "Listen, fellas, I got to deal with." No, he had to tell him, "This is the blueprint.

This is the shape. You need all this.

You need all that. You got to measure it and all that." It's a very interesting thing. I mean, yeah, that's a great

thing. I mean, yeah, that's a great story. You don't go to the great boat

story. You don't go to the great boat boat builder. You go

boat builder. You go >> the >> taxi driver or something to >> the taxi and then that's that that uh hero's journey that that's the stuff of great myths. Yeah,

great myths. Yeah, >> it is. It is a great myth.

>> A little detail would be really cool about the the the replica like uh what did you of the boat? Yeah. One

>> something else.

There were there were three BS who did it.

>> Yep. And they were specialists in reconstructing medieval Arab boats because quite often they found in the mud or bits or they have information and

they rec so they were at home in it and we built it on a small lagoon in in Kerala. It was just the most

Kerala. It was just the most unbelievably wonderful thing because they used the instructions as a blueprint. They made it about a third of

blueprint. They made it about a third of the size of the original. A pretty huge thing but they made it they because it had wooden ribs. You see?

>> Mhm.

>> And they could get wood ribs. They

worked out by computer the maximum maximum size they could do it when it would work. Beyond it, it would be

would work. Beyond it, it would be impossible because once they built the curved ribs and then the stuff woven all around it, it had to be covered in

bitammen, which is also very heavy to make it waterproof. So they calculated the size and it worked. So they built this thing on rollers and it was pushed out into the it was just the most

unbeliev I went out there with my dear wife for the last few days and was on the maiden voyage and they had trouble with the bumen because Indian bammen is really not up to scratch and they

couldn't get Iraqi bitin because it's cultural property it's carcinogenic they wouldn't export a tank a load of Iraqi so we had to use Indian stuff but the thing is this the bitamin which they

coated it with was okay but it wasn't perfect so when went out into the waters. There was a bit of a leak. Water

waters. There was a bit of a leak. Water

had to be bailed out. So I was ah you see I said okay listen sunshine. I said to this producer you ever been in a rowing boat without water in the bottom? Excuse

me.

>> Oh you're saying that's that's a feature not >> that's the feature of the thing. Yeah

that's the feature. That thing could have gone to ports.

>> So it's authentic.

>> Absolutely right. We had such an adventure with that thing. They made a documentary film. Yeah, in various

documentary film. Yeah, in various languages. And you know what they did?

languages. And you know what they did?

You know, I was in it a bit a bit. And

they had people saying, "Oh, I don't think it was this. I don't think it was that." You know, they didn't let me go

that." You know, they didn't let me go back and say, "What the hell are you talking about? I did it. I know what I'm

talking about? I did it. I know what I'm talking I can rec." They didn't they didn't do it. I I couldn't get my own back. I was really annoyed, really

back. I was really annoyed, really furious.

>> So, you're you're saying that there's some inaccurate things, too.

>> I am saying there's some inaccurate things. Yeah. Somebody in Iraq said,

things. Yeah. Somebody in Iraq said, "Oh, it couldn't have been that. They

probably had lots of little coracles all tied together, did they? Fuck. I mean,

you know, he couldn't read the stuff. I

mean, it's really, really, really annoying. I mean, you should have a

annoying. I mean, you should have a chance, shouldn't you? You know, if you're going to have a fencing match, you both have to have a rap here, wouldn't you say?

>> Yeah. And you're the the OG. You're the

person that coded it.

>> Yeah. But the thing is this, the proportions of the material were accurate. M

accurate. M >> this is the crucial thing that um what had happened was is they took the information about how you make a real

coral which is usually enough two people and a few sheep and goats and they bumped them up so that it worked. And I

know why that is because it goes back to your question about oral literature because there must have been times when people went to

villages and told them about the flood and when they got to the question of the boat they'd say something like this and Enki said you got to build the biggest

coracal you've ever seen like that right well I mean if you do this in cinema in Guilford people will say well that's fine but if you do it to a whole load of

river people who use coracals and make build. They're not going to take that.

build. They're not going to take that.

They're not going to say, "How big was it then? Come on, how big was it?" So,

it then? Come on, how big was it?" So,

what do they do? They go to a coral place and they work out the proportions of material and then they bump it up so that the actor who reads this for the

first few times he has in his pocket how much it is, but after a while he knows it by heart. so that none of these people get angry and you can't expect us big enough for all this. So then he'd

have all the stuff and he'd do it with this way and you need all this and need all this and they'd all be hypnotized by it. That I think is is actually

it. That I think is is actually regarding your question, it's on the cusp of purely oral literature to purely

literary literature. It's actually there

literary literature. It's actually there because you can see that it was molded in the environment when people were still talking.

>> Yeah. You got to make it authentic to really connect with people.

>> Well, you couldn't pull it over their eyes. I mean, you know,

eyes. I mean, you know, >> I wish uh many of the films in Hollywood today would have the same level of rigor.

>> Rigor is one of the things lacking in the world.

>> By the way, I forgot to ask. Why was the flood myth focused on noisy people?

>> Well, it can't really be noisy. I tell

you what the explanation is. It's it's

something quite different. Before the

flood, the gods had not created death.

So I think the noise was a reflex of the fact there were just too many animals, too many people, and they had to do something about it. So it's a sort of

euphemism so to speak because after the flood at the end of the tablet not my tablet but the other ones where it's still broken it says there's a

tantalizing thing where they create baron women and who can't have children and men who can't have children and people who priestesses who don't have

children and they institute in society some figures who will not reproduce the species. So it's actually a rather

species. So it's actually a rather sophisticated Malthusian kind of philosophical position. It's remarkable. So that the

position. It's remarkable. So that the noise means there's so many of them, not they're actually so noisy that we can't hear ourselves think.

>> You have to tell me about the the world of ancient games. Maybe we can start with the ancient royal game of

what is it and uh how were you somehow able to crack the rules of it? Well, the

Royal Game of U um is a board of 20 squares in a rather idiosyncratic form and it was pretty much unknown until the

1920s when Selenid Woolly was digging at the site of or in the graves of the royal family, the Sumerian rulers, they found four or five

boards of this pattern together with dice and pieces which showed that it was popular among them at this time and also that wherever they were going in the

world to come they would want to be playing it. And so that was one thing

playing it. And so that was one thing and we had the number of pieces and some dice. So uh lots of people had ideas

dice. So uh lots of people had ideas about how it might have been played and that went on like that for a very long time and thereafter boards for this game

turned up in most of the countries of the Middle East sometimes quite a lot of them and and the one from Ur dates to about 2,600 BC

and from then down to the end of the first millennium there's examples of boards from Mespert itself and from Egypt,

Syria Lebanon Jordan Turkey Greece um Cree all over the place. And when you put all the boards together,

you realize that you're dealing with a board game which was um, extremely widespread and extremely popular >> across space and time.

>> Across space and time. So it lasted for nearly 3,000 years and it was played all over the place. So it's one of those

games which is like chess or back gammon which you can say are world conquerors because the way I

see that the issue is that human beings um for a very long time have been shall

we say hungry for things to do because all through the Bronze Age and the Iron Age There was no television,

you know, there weren't there weren't no nothing. And kids played with pullalong

nothing. And kids played with pullalong things and adults um had board games and they're kind of embedded in culture from

a very early time. And this game was so widespread, you know, Tuton Camun, for example, in his tomb, there were two or three boards for it with the pieces. So

it arrived in the middle of the second millennium in Egypt and even the pharaoh played it. So you have a game which the

played it. So you have a game which the interesting point about it is that it spread um across the gnome world um without

written rules and without people necessarily knowing the same language.

Um, so a merchant would go end up in a bar, you know, come from India or I don't know where and start pl seeing these guys playing have a go himself and it looks rather interesting.

You go home and try and remember what it looked like and try and work out how to, you know, be transported this way and the other. And so you can see that that

the other. And so you can see that that the board has 20 squares. So you have a block of 4x3 and then a bridge of two and then a second 3x two thing at the

end. So it it's difficult to describe

end. So it it's difficult to describe the actual shape. But what happened was after about 2,000 BC the squares at the

far end which there were two on one flank and two on the other were all put at the end of the central avenue.

>> So you end up with 12 squares down the middle. So all the boards after the

middle. So all the boards after the period of ore have 12 squares down the middle and then four on each side at one end. So it meant then that when you play

end. So it meant then that when you play the game you have dice to move the pieces. You have pieces all the same and

pieces. You have pieces all the same and you obviously put them on your first corner and you turn the corner you go up the middle and off the end. And it was a race game of the kind that everybody

knows from their own childhood. And some

squares which had rosettes on were the safe squares or you had another throw and you could maybe put two on one square. We don't know. You could try and

square. We don't know. You could try and block people and but anyway the crucial thing is that the widespread distribution of this idiosyncratic shape

and its lasting thing shows it must have been a very good game. Um if if people more or less played the same thing on it everywhere. I mean it may be that they

everywhere. I mean it may be that they were completely different games but probably not. So this is the thing it

probably not. So this is the thing it makes you wonder what would be about it that would fit so well with a wide appetite from different persons

different types of person. And the thing is that although it's a race game where you're at the mercy of dice

and lucky squares and unlucky squares that 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. It's a mix of probability and strategy.

>> Yeah. So most games are either just um probability like snakes and ladders.

Snake shoots and ladders is just thing like that. Or you have a game like chess

like that. Or you have a game like chess which is pure strategy.

And the grown-up game in the modern world where fortuitity or chance and strategy have a good balance is back gammon which is a sort of grownup

version of this sort of game where nevertheless if you play according to the most rational interpretation it strategy is a a major factor. So what

happened was that many people had ideas how it was played and the route followed and I did too. And then I discovered this tablet in the British Museum which

was written at a very late period in the 2nd century BC. So 2,300 years after this object existed and it had on it the

names of the pieces and what the pieces were like and various things about the throws. And it was obvious that it was

throws. And it was obvious that it was the rules were to do with a game which was derived from this simple early game and that working backwards from it, you

could reconstruct the game in accordance with its later incarnation that might be workable. And it jolly well turned out

workable. And it jolly well turned out to be workable because people play this all over the world now. And they um they even play in Iraq in cafes. way. Now,

now >> they do because after it's come come back to life, it's on the internet, people play, they're different rules, but the ones that I invented are pretty much regular. So, if you have a good

much regular. So, if you have a good balance between chance and strategy >> and it's a fair game and doesn't take four days to play like modern board

games. So, you can have a go and if

games. So, you can have a go and if you're lucky, you win fast and then you have another go, maybe best of three or something like that. It works out rather

well. And once I was in um uh in in

well. And once I was in um uh in in California in in in in the Getty and I had to give a talk about this with all the information and there's lots of

things to say about it and the the the lady who ran the friends of the Getty had a brilliant idea. So she bought in 20 or so commercial copies of this game

and they had small tables with chairs and after the lecture I was supposed to say to everybody, okay, this is what you have to do. this is how you play cuz you can get the rules down in like 3 minutes like this. So I said okay first you have

like this. So I said okay first you have to do this first you have to do that. So

off you go. So there was silence and then after a while someone said I hate you. I'm never playing with you again.

you. I'm never playing with you again.

when they never played it before, >> when somebody had escaped at the last minute, cleaned up just when they thought they were going to get and it

provokes that solitary, benevolent fury and rage in the players >> which all good board games do. And they

were happily married couples who were at the end of the afternoon phoning their respective lawyers to discuss the future. That kind of thing, beautiful

future. That kind of thing, beautiful matter. You think games are,

matter. You think games are, you know, our desire to play games, a mix of chance, a mix of strategy is a part of human nature. You think that's

always been there?

>> I do. I do. Yes. I think um I mean you can you can say that um in communities you have rivalry, hostility, and who's the best, who's the fastest,

who's the strongest and things. And if

you play a board game like that, all the reality of it is sublimated into a safe terrain. Yes.

terrain. Yes.

>> Where you can nevertheless get angry.

But it's not >> it's not like that. That's one thing.

But more significantly, I believe is is the question of what in India people call time pass.

>> Mhm.

>> Which is not quite the same as pastime.

Time pass is the question of what you do when it's too hot to do anything.

which is true a good part of the day and a good part of the year and grandmothers sit under trees with their grandchildren and they tell stories and they do this

and they do that and time pass is a very useful catchall phrase for the existence of board games and in India there are many board games um chess of course is the

famous one but they're quite lot of three in a row type games or fox against geese games and wolves against sheep and all those sorts of things which come out

of the landscape in miniature and were play for pleasure and also uh in a kind of way it doesn't really matter who wins because you might play goes round and round and round

eventually somebody wins and then they have another game. So it's a sort of that kind of rather graceful valid function for not wasting time doing

something which is stimulating and beneficial without it being um overpowering in either way. So I think

it is a human matter. Of course uh we humans also sometimes mix in gambling into the whole thing to add some money on top of it which I'm sure sometimes

was involved here. I think I think so but probably only late on because money as such >> of course doesn't appear till quite late

but there there are uh we know in Mesopotamia it's rather interesting thing there's a school tablet with three or four lines quoted

from one literary thing and three or four from another literary thing and one of them it has this

uh oh my Astro Al. Oh my Astragal. Woe

is me. Woe is me.

And that's all we have. And I think this is an example of a genre of literature called the gamblers's lament because they use knucklebones or

astrogals as dice. And I'm sure there were people who bet sack of this or a room full of that and uh on the throw of the knucklebones. And this extract in

the knucklebones. And this extract in the school text is probably from a literary tablet in which somebody lost everything

even though they weren't coins because I think you're right that it's a natural it's a natural thing to for it to acrue and also maybe men and women play

differently because there are some games which were played um in karims among girls you know on a hot afternoon where nobody was going to win anything. But

the rules tablet which gives this kind of backhanded information about it is couched in such a way that it talks about people in a bar

because the movement of the pieces is calculated in terms of food and drink and women what you win.

So the landscape in which the rules accounts for credibility are for is just exactly that setup.

As you mentioned, you're the creator at the uh possibly the greatest place on earth, the British Museum.

>> Oh yes.

>> Can you tell me what are some of the incredible magical aspects of the British Museum? Well, the British Museum

British Museum? Well, the British Museum is a magical place and um it's a special case um because there's a lot of flurry

and dispute now about what museums are and what they're for and why they exist and whether they should ever have existed and all these sorts of issues which people go on about. But the

British Museum is unlike almost all museums in the world because it's to do with the achievements of mankind from

the beginning onwards. So it's a kind of celebration of art and more. But it's

not an art museum. It's to do with the struggle of the human race against all the things that beset it and how it has triumphed and how marvelous it is and the things that have happened and not

turning a blind eye to all the contrasting horrible things that have happened but it's the narrative of the human race as I see it as discernable in

objects. So it means that we serve two

objects. So it means that we serve two very important horizons.

One is that we represent as far as we can the whole world with no injudicious attention paid to any one or other

culture that they're all to us one. So there's no favoring

one. So there's no favoring any religious group, any country group, anything of the kind. It's the human

species we try to tell the narrative of in its own right and how it overlaps with its neighbors and how it what it's

learned from what came before. All those

features together is really what the concern of the museum is. And of course to to collect everything we we or has been to collect everything we can to

tell those narratives and also to look after them um according to scientific principle. So all those things at once

principle. So all those things at once are the task of the British Museum. And

the second horizon it serves um is the unborn.

So ba babies yet to be born and their children and their children and their children. And it seems to me that the

children. And it seems to me that the task of the museum is of such cultural significance and such so to speak sacred validity that it shouldn't have to put

up with people carping about this or that or saying the museums are sinful and wicked and should be demolished because the people who say these things

don't really have any idea of actually what it really does stand for. And it's

a kind of lighthouse in a universe where we are surrounded by darkness ignorance stupidity

uninterest disinterest skepticism ignorance, and so forth about the very issues that we're interested in. And

it's one of the places in the world where you can talk about truth and beauty and elegance and intelligence without it being an affront to people who have none of those qualities and

without it being a kind of speech that people shudder or they think you're being naive about it because those are the crucial things. And also

about religion that we don't favor a religion and we don't sponsor a religion. We try to look them for what

religion. We try to look them for what they are and to assess their relationships and what they offer

perhaps less with a less assertity and less criticism than I would if I was the director. I would try to put them down

director. I would try to put them down the wrong end of a microscope and look at them for what they are and what they have done and what's been done in the names of religion. You probably would never get away with that. But maybe one

day that will be an important part because it's a major contributive factor to what's happened to the human race which is never really articulated

sharply about what religion has done to us and where we might have been without it. Because not having religion does not

it. Because not having religion does not mean not having law or morality or sensitivity or consideration or love or any of those things. None of those

things depends on religion.

And those are the things which are important. So I think it's um people say

important. So I think it's um people say ah you say this because you work there and you you know you're a curator. You

would say that that the British Museum is a special place has nothing to do with that. It is actually a special

with that. It is actually a special place because you cannot point to another museum in the world with the same task. For example, the Louvre is

same task. For example, the Louvre is basically a museum of art. Basically a

museum of art, not a museum of ideas.

And the Met is definitely a museum of art. It's called the Museum of Art. And

art. It's called the Museum of Art. And

that's their priority. Design and color and shape to us to my mind is the British Museum. This is one factor among

British Museum. This is one factor among many others. And we are not an art

many others. And we are not an art museum and we're not a local museum.

We're not a museum of the history of the bicycle. We're not a celebration of

bicycle. We're not a celebration of evil. We are, as it were, doing, as I

evil. We are, as it were, doing, as I see it, the best we could do. If, for

example, a whole load of Martians arrived in the great court and um burst through the front door and said to us,

um, "Tell us all about this place. Tell

us about the world. Can you do it fast cuz we got to leave." And if you took them round and said, "Look at this. Look

at this. Look at this. Look at this."

They'd get some picture which wasn't insane. The only thing they wouldn't get

insane. The only thing they wouldn't get is a recording of Johnny be good by Chuck Bry, but apparently one's being put into space.

>> So this is a very comforting thing.

>> But that's kind of what the task for the British Museum is to do that but for the entirety of human history.

>> Yeah.

>> Store of artifacts that >> that are the raindrops from which you can reconstruct the world.

>> Precisely. So, and it's not a valid criticism to say to us that most of the stuff is not on exhibition, which is what everybody says. It should go here, it should go there because it's not on

exhibition. But we're not doing it for

exhibition. But we're not doing it for any other reason than stockpiling for future examination. See this is the

future examination. See this is the important perspective that nobody considers because the thing is when you have something which is contemporary

if you're a clever journalist or a clever thinker you can write essays about it you can talk about it and you can see it but you can only see it from the perspective from which you operate.

And with the passage of time the significance of objects what they stand for what they meant and what they can still mean shifts. And the further back you go, the sharper you can understand

things, especially in terms of their own precedent and their own modern par contemporary parallels. So the the dis

contemporary parallels. So the the dis the benefit of distance storage and contemplation is inestimable.

There's so many questions I want to ask you. What what wisdom do you think

you. What what wisdom do you think the people from whom these artifacts came had that we may have the modern day

humans may have lost or lost in part or in whole. So the it's often as you've

in whole. So the it's often as you've spoken about we see the ancient peoples as uh lesser, dumber,

um more primitive and you've spoken about how they are basically the same.

>> I think you put them on a bus all wearing the same clothes, you wouldn't know. That's my feeling. But there is

know. That's my feeling. But there is some I'm sure there's some greater wisdom they had about certain things as as we have greater wisdom about others.

Thanks to Einstein, we figured out the curvature of spaceime >> which they didn't know about. But

>> they knew quite a lot about astronomy though. Quite a lot about astronomy.

though. Quite a lot about astronomy.

>> They stared at the stars.

>> Yeah. And they measured them and they they they made calculations. And when

the Greeks went to Babylon, they think, "Hey, man, this is really cool." And

they wrote it all down and went home. Yeah,

definitely. Definitely. Well, I think it's it's it's a hard question to answer. Um but one of the things is that

answer. Um but one of the things is that they were spared things which have cluttered up the essence of humanity because I think that

the modern adherence to the electronic universe is disastrous for humans and because it reduces the vitality of the

human component. I think it's

human component. I think it's restrictive in a way that people don't realize until it's too late. Like drugs,

if you take drugs now and again, you think, "Oh, it's fine. It's fine." Then

suddenly you realize you're addicted to heroin. It's a bit like that. People use

heroin. It's a bit like that. People use

the electronic world like an an addictive drug and they can't get through without it. And I think this is a very recent thing, but I suppose it's not I'm a lite and say we shouldn't have

railway engines and we shouldn't have kettles, but I think one one of the things about the the ancient world was that people never went anywhere unless

they were merchants or in soldiers. They

never went anywhere. Probably people

born and died in a village and then their children born and died in the village and they never knew anything about the outside world. maybe very

little sometimes there'd be a message but in principle they had no idea about other countries other languages or how big they were or so I don't think they

had wisdom in in in a way that you could type out following precepts will make life better because they told lies and they esteem

the truth and they fell in love and they committed adultery and they did murder and they did all the I think in a way the ancient world

allowed human beings to be to behave more naturally than it does now.

The world in which we live. I mean if you do live in in a rustic environment or or or by the sea or or or you're a fisherman or you I mean all those normal real kind of things then it's probably

all right. But most people who live

all right. But most people who live crammed in the cities live a very very artificial life where the principles which they regard as ineluctibly crucial

are not ineluctibly crucial. They're not

in you know one example is this ghastly thing on mobiles where you get a short clip from a real program.

>> Yeah.

>> I think it's utterly utterly wicked. So

you have children all over the world who cannot articulate, spell or make meaning clear using the best most literary and most beneficial language has ever been

created which is English to save their lives. And they use a word I'll give you

lives. And they use a word I'll give you an example.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Like I went >> like I went >> like I went. Yeah.

>> So it's difficult to define that grammatically. difficult like I should

grammatically. difficult like I should have gone where I went or I should have gone means to speak.

Now how would it be if when we see the verb to go in Sumerian it actually meant to speak. How where would we be? Where

to speak. How where would we be? Where

would we be?

>> I mean we should probably say that even in in that time there was probably slang, right? It just wouldn't end up

slang, right? It just wouldn't end up written >> in the dialects. There were words that sailors used for sure. all those things, >> but they wouldn't end up in writing.

>> Sometimes they do.

>> We have to remember that Cambridge and Oxford speak in a certain way that's proper and formal and very smart, but there's most of the people in bars,

sailors have a different way of speaking. So they would probably say

speaking. So they would probably say like I went and have emojis and >> but the thing is you have to moderate your vocabulary

>> to talk to people of a certain age because they don't know what the fuck you're talking about if you use language exactly. And the thing which is so

exactly. And the thing which is so exquisite about English is like with a barristister you can make a case which is absolutely wonderful because it says

exactly what it means and there's no wrigle room and that the conversation should be like that with no wiggle room.

It's not it's not just a matter of spelling but the basic vocabulary you know something very interesting people say they know English or they speak English. Have you ever in your life

English. Have you ever in your life opened a full-size volume of the Oxford English Dictionary? It's about that like

English Dictionary? It's about that like this fat. I have a whole set. I love

this fat. I have a whole set. I love

them. So, this is it. You take a volume off the shelf and you open the book and you run your forefinger down the various columns of writing. You might have to

turn several pages before you find a single word you've ever heard before because English is unimaginably rich. I

grew up in a house where everybody read literature all the time. I had three sisters and and then a brother and we all read literature. Went to the library every week, read lots and lots and lots

of books. So, we all had really good

of books. So, we all had really good vocabulary.

And that's how you get vocabulary.

Otherwise, you don't because in conversation, do you want more tea? All

this sort of stuff. You don't learn new vocabulary. You have to get it from

vocabulary. You have to get it from reading and listening to proper stuff.

>> We should say the very important aspect of vocabulary. Why it's important to

of vocabulary. Why it's important to know a lot of words and to uh speak clearly because those words also define the quality of your thoughts.

>> Sure.

>> At the end of the day, >> that's exactly right. I must say I I I think it is a pity if having produced such wonderful languages in the world that they don't that their use is so

inhibited. I I think the right way to

inhibited. I I think the right way to think about it is the way the British Museum thinks about it. So you're

commenting on the ephemeral on the on the thing that is in the moment right now is happening. The reality is only a few select things will last 100 200

years from now about this moment in time. And so

time. And so we have to sort of think um with the big picture perspective and the slowness of time. Yes, in the moment

there's these catastrophes. There's

changing ways of speaking, the technology tearing apart the fabric of society. But

when you zoom out, you will think about the grand ideas of Einstein, the battle of ideologies with communism and Nazism of the 20th centuries, the

bad, the triumphant, the rockets, these humans started launching rockets going to the moon, maybe to Mars, those those things. And

we won't be thinking about emojis and any of that. And and in some sense that's the the stuff you're looking at

with with kunea forms is the the things that stand the test of time that are there.

>> That's true. But I think I think that language properly used is a crucial human tool for communication.

>> Absolutely. Yes. Speaking of which, I have to ask some more about the kaiform tablets at the British Museum. When

you're surrounded by so many and by the way, how many uh ka forms?

>> About 130,000.

>> That is so cool.

>> Jeez, it's pretty cool.

>> What are some of the most beautiful to you? Maybe ones we don't know about ka

you? Maybe ones we don't know about ka forms like they make you smile.

>> Well, there not many jokes. You asked

about jokes.

>> Yeah, they lost their sense of humor in Canaan form.

>> Yeah, I think there are. There's one

that what I can remember was the um a fly or what mosquito lands on the back of an elephant and says am I too heavy for you or something like that joke.

>> Yeah.

>> You wouldn't mute it in the pub or anything like that.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You had to be there.

>> And also do you like Tom Lara?

>> Of course.

>> Okay. That's good. That's good.

I once went to America on a lecture tour and I ended up in a town where Dr. Vienna Fon Brown

>> um ended up running the American rocket >> Mhm.

>> industry.

>> It doesn't matter >> once the rockets are up who cares where they come down. That's not my department says Wner Brown. that guy. I mean, I I could tell where your wit comes from.

The fact that you know Tom Lair, >> but he's such a The way he plays the piano is fantastic.

>> Yeah.

>> I think my dad recorded them off the radio on a realtore tape recorder and I learned them all by heart. They were so fantastic. But I I knew a Harvard

fantastic. But I I knew a Harvard professor who I stayed with once who was a sumerologist and his wife said that she knew Tom Ner when he was in the math department >> and they used to have parties and he

always played the piano in the corner of the room. He's just amazing.

the room. He's just amazing.

Yeah, the I mean he had a real you have that you know I've watched a lot of your stuff your whole way of being the wit.

There's something about that like biting wit. It's a bit of humor bit of

biting wit. It's a bit of humor bit of sadness in it. It just kind of feels like it really quickly gets to the

complexity of what it means to be human.

>> I think so. But the the the paradoxical thing about Tom Larry is when he's talking about um the bomb and and all that and devices

and international trouble. It's so

international trouble. It's so unchanged.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> And and same with Doctor Strange Love.

It's just it's very remarkable. Anyway,

next time you're here, when you're here, you should come and see me in the museum and I'll show you some of these confounded things for yourself and um show you the Chicago dictionary and give

you a grammar book to learn. And

>> Irving, you're a remarkable human being.

>> Well, I'm very glad we met.

>> It's truly an honor to meet you.

>> Me, too. It's been very interesting.

>> Irving, thank you so much for talking.

>> It's been a big pleasure for me, Lex. Be

well.

>> Thanks for listening to this conversation with Irving Finkele. To

support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description where you can also find links to contact me, ask questions, give feedback, and so on.

And now, let me leave you with some words from Ludwick Woodenstein.

The limits of my language means the limits of my world.

Thank you for listening. I hope to see you next time.