The earliest evidence of writing dates back to around 3500 B.C. in Mesopotamia, the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The people there used clay as a surface. The fundamental idea of writing is creating an agreed-upon system of symbols where a sign represents a specific sound. When someone sees the sign, they can reproduce that sound, much like a gramophone record plays back music. Irving Finkel notes that while the oldest evidence is from 3500 B.C., it's very unlikely this was the absolute beginning of the concept.

Initially, the system used simple pictographic messages: a drawing of a foot meant foot, a drawing of barley meant barley. Gradually, the system evolved to represent numerals and then, crucially, sounds. The major breakthrough occurred when a picture came to represent not just the object itself, but the sound of the word for that object. This liberated writing from simple pictures and allowed it to record language, including grammar, proverbs, and literature. This was a gigantic step in human history.

Once they had the idea that you could write sounds with pictures, that's the crucial thing... 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 panoply of signs which could convey sound.

This writing system, which lasted for over three millennia, is called cuneiform. The name comes from the Latin word 'cuneus' for wedge, as the marks are composed of wedge-shaped impressions. It was a beautiful and flexible system. A well-trained scribe could write not only native languages like Sumerian and Babylonian but any language they heard, even if they didn't understand it.

A key to cuneiform's longevity was the invention of lexicography. Early on, someone realized that without control, the number of signs would grow exponentially into nonsense. They began a systematic effort to standardize and organize signs into lists: all things made of wood, all names of gods, all names of countries. This rigor streamlined the system and made it teachable. This structural backbone was so strong that a scribe in Alexander the Great's time could still understand a tablet written thousands of years earlier.

The clay tablets were incredibly durable. Archaeologists have found hundreds of thousands of them, containing everything from everyday letters and business contracts to royal histories, literature, magic, and medicine. Millions more likely remain buried, a safe and comforting thought as they are protected in the ground.

The development of cuneiform, particularly the genius invention of encoding sound onto a tablet, presents a paradox. The accepted theory in Assyriology is that writing began with pictographic signs, where a symbol meant what it looked like. Only later did people realize these signs could also represent what the words sounded like, allowing for the recording of grammar and complex language.

Irving Finkel finds this sequence hard to believe. He questions why a society would start with such a limited and inflexible system. If a group of people sharing the same language needed to create a writing system, it would be more logical to start with signs that represent sounds. They could have easily worked out the component parts of their language, the vowels and consonants, and created a set of signs to write anything they wanted from the outset.

My hunch is that the archaeological evidence that we have on this score is ultimately misleading... I think that what happened with the Sumerians 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.

Irving proposes a highly controversial theory: that for a very long time, people in the Middle East who did not share a language used a simple picture-based system for trade and basic communication. The Sumerian pictographs we've found, he argues, represent the end of this long tradition. The true innovation came when someone decided to adapt these simple signs to represent their own spoken language.

This idea is supported by evidence from Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, a massive architectural site from around 9,000 BC. The old theory held that writing was invented around 3,000 BC in Mesopotamia to manage complex cities. However, Gobekli Tepe would have required a similar level of organization 7,000 years earlier. Irving points to a photograph of a round green stone from the site, carved with hieroglyphic signs. He believes it is a stamp seal, proof of an administrative writing system thousands of years before it was thought to exist.

Pictographic writing, like a 'no smoking' sign, communicates across language barriers. Irving Finkel believes this was the pervading system in ancient times and that the people of Gobekli Tepe were not primitive but indistinguishable from modern humans. He suggests that the complexity of the Gobekli structures implies advanced organization, tools, and vision.

Controversially, Irving proposes that a writing system already existed at the time of Gobekli Tepe. He points to a seal found there, which was used for ratification, not just a simple marking. He compares this to a famous Sherlock Holmes idea.

It is theoretically possible to infer the Niagara Falls from a raindrop. That's a powerful statement. Well, that seal from Gobekli Tepe is a raindrop from which I infer writing.

He argues that writing likely existed on perishable materials, like flat leaves, which is why no other evidence has survived. This is similar to the Indus Valley, where only seals remain, but it's obvious a broader writing system existed. He notes that inertia is nearly as strong as evolution, meaning ancient practices may not be so different from some modern ones, like writing on palm leaves in India.

While ancient languages like Akkadian and Sumerian can now be read fluently, the available material is a skewed and tiny fraction of what once existed. For example, thousands of administrative tablets from the Ur III period likely came from just two storerooms, which is not representative of an entire culture. Similarly, the great library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh was discovered with tablets broken and scattered. The conquerors of Nineveh would not have destroyed this 'giant brain' containing all the world's knowledge, as they spoke the same language and used the same writing system. This suggests what was found is only a small remnant of the original collection.

The cuneiform writing system is fundamentally syllabic, not alphabetic. Scribes could not write a single consonant like 'b'. Instead, they used signs representing syllables, which combined a consonant with a vowel, such as 'ab' and 'ba', 'ib' and 'be', and so on. To write a word like 'museum', they would break it into its component syllables and write the signs for 'mu', 'ze', and 'um'. When read, these syllables are mentally combined to form the word.

Studying cuneiform involves learning two distinct languages: Babylonian and Sumerian. Babylonian is a Semitic language, related to Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. This connection to a known language family was crucial for its decipherment. Sumerian, however, is a language isolate. It is not related to any other known language, which Irving Finkel finds a 'bewitching' fact. Most languages belong to larger families, like the Indo-European group. The isolation of Sumerian suggests that its entire language family has been lost to time, with Sumerian itself being recorded in writing just before it vanished.

I Personally believe that Neanderthals 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 did... the idea that you and I are out hunting Rhino, and you say, lex, shut up. I'm constant legs, legs. And I suddenly think, oh, I get it, you are legs, right? You only have to do that once. Then you know who I am. So I know that I'm me and that you are you.

Irving argues strongly that early humans like Neanderthals must have possessed language. He dismisses the notion that they couldn't distinguish their own ego. The basic experience of pain, like cutting one's hand, is a powerful confirmation of selfhood. Simple acts of communication, like assigning names during a hunt, would have been enough to establish individual identity.

Early humans were undoubtedly conscious of themselves as distinct entities. Irving Finkel dismisses any notion to the contrary, using a simple example: if you cut your own hand, the immediate and personal threat is undeniable. This fundamental self-awareness likely had vocal expressions, which evolved into names and labels for things.

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

The moment a sound becomes a fixed label for an object or concept is a critical turning point. Once this "light bulb has gone on," language explodes, allowing for words like "rhino," "skin," and "babies." This process is fertile; one idea drives the brain to have another, fostering cognitive development. The primary driver for developing written language is tied to the rise of civilization. It emerges within urban environments that have complex structures like governments, kings, and rival institutions.

This same logic applies to ancient sites like Göbekli Tepe. Irving refutes the theory that it was built by nomads who only visited seasonally. The level of planning required for such a structure—drawing plans, quarrying stone, and calculating dimensions—necessitates a settled, organized society, not a spontaneous effort.

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, like that, like gorillas.

When the first cuneiform tablets came to light, no one could read them. The key to deciphering the script was a trilingual inscription from the Persian King Darius, carved into a mountain at a place called Bisutun. Much like the Rosetta Stone, it contained the same text in three languages: Elamite, Babylonian, and Old Persian.

Since Old Persian is an archaic form of a language that was still spoken, scholars were able to decipher it first. They read names and repeated phrases like, "I am Darius the great, king." They realized the other two columns likely contained the same text, which was the key that unlocked cuneiform. A further breakthrough came when they understood that Babylonian was a Semitic language. For example, the word for "river," nauru, was similar to its equivalent in Arabic and Aramaic. This allowed them to use Arabic and Hebrew dictionaries to find words that fit the context.

Irving Finkel notes that while Henry Rawlinson is often called the "father of assyriology," he considers him more of a "stepfather." He gives more credit to an Irish clergyman named Edward Hincks. Hincks was the one who figured out a core principle of the script: its signs are multivalent.

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's actually not a walk in the park... you have to choose the right sound and also different meaning as well... It's all a context matter.

This complexity, combined with the fact that there were no spaces between words, makes reading cuneiform a challenge. You have to consider the potential values for each sign in sequence to piece together words. However, the number of variables was controlled, making the system masterable with study.

Irving Finkel's journey into cuneiform was entirely accidental. He originally intended to be an Egyptologist, but his professor at the University of Birmingham died after the very first lesson. The head of the department suggested he temporarily study cuneiform with another professor, Lambert. Irving found Professor Lambert to be an intimidating figure.

Professor Lambert, who was rather a Sherlock Holmes kind of figure, aesthetic bony, sarcastic, cruel. Cruel, cruel. Absolutely terrifying.

Despite this, after just one or two lessons, Irving knew cuneiform would be his life's work. The cuneiform writing system was the most successful in history, lasting 3,000 years. This longevity was due to inertia and, more importantly, the power structure it supported. The small, elite group of people who could read and write commanded great power, controlling archives, knowledge, and philosophical inquiry. They had no interest in promoting mass literacy, as it would undermine their authority.

If you got on a soapbox on a Saturday afternoon, you say, 'enough of this, we have to teach the children,' they'd be taken away, I think.

Scribal schools created a tiered system. Students who were less academically gifted were tasked with everyday writing, such as contracts and letters for the illiterate public. The more talented students pursued high-level professions like medicine, law, architecture, or administration for the king and priesthood. The most intellectually able delved into complex disciplines like astronomy and theoretical grammar. When asked if the language itself limited the civilization, Irving explained that Babylonian was an incredibly rich and subtle language, comparable to English or Arabic, and fully capable of expressing complex thought.

A large portion of Mesopotamian scholarly literature consists of omens, which were believed to show the implications of events for the future. These texts are often translated with a direct cause-and-effect structure. For example, a text might read, "If a lizard runs across the breakfast table, the queen will die." Irving Finkel argues this literal interpretation is impossible.

A royal diviner would never state definitively that the queen will die. If she didn't, he would look foolish, and if she did, he would be held responsible. Instead, a diviner would interpret the sign as a possibility, stating that the queen *could* die. This warning was not a prediction but a trigger for action. The correct rituals or magic would then be used to defer the potential danger. The relationship was never "A equals B," but rather "A suggests B could be true." This required the diviner to be a philosopher, carefully managing the king's expectations and delivering bad news subtly.

A similar logic applies to ancient medical texts, which are often translated with definitive statements like, "If a man has this condition, you do this, and he'll get better." This is unlike any modern doctor's prognosis.

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. Because what happens if you die? Where are you? The lawyers will show up.

The issue stems from a limitation in Akkadian grammar. It lacks direct ways to express modal verbs like "could," "might," or "should." However, it is inconceivable that such a sophisticated literary culture lacked these subtleties. Translators who automatically render a verb as "will," as per the grammar books, miss the entire nuanced meaning of the text.

Translation is described as part archaeology, part detective work, and part poetry. The core challenge is that a word in one language never has a precise equivalent in another. The best a translator can do is find a close match, but this can sometimes be misleading. For example, when students learn Akkadian, they might learn that the word 'parasu' means 'to divide'. While that is its primary meaning, it carries about ten other nuances. The meanings at opposite ends of the spectrum are so different you would hardly know they were connected.

For translators of Akkadian, the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary is a magnificent and essential tool. Irving Finkel considers it one of the most important things to ever come out of America.

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.

Started in the 1920s, this massive dictionary of the Babylonian language is as long as a table. The scholars who worked on it for decades understood that meaning is contextual. A word's use in a proverb is different from its use in a letter. This deep understanding makes the quality of translation extraordinary.

Today, the work of an Assyriologist is less about decipherment and more about reading and interpretation. Competent Assyriologists can sight-read tablets, but most documents are damaged. This requires interpreting missing pieces and understanding difficult technical vocabulary. The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, a collaborative effort of the world's best scholars over many decades, is a fantastic tool for this complex work.

Ancient Babylonian texts reveal timeless human dramas, including love letters and street plays. Some love letters contain rather unusual compliments. One example describes a woman as beautiful, with lips like radishes and ears like walruses. There are also records of a street drama from 4th century B.C. Babylon, which likely would have been performed by actors for an audience.

This play features the god Marduk having an affair with another goddess on a roof. His wife, Sarpanitum, is in a room below and can hear them. What follows is a confrontation between the two women, who fight in the street and hurl insults at one another, like "slot bucket." Irving Finkel describes the scene as hilarious, comparing it to a Verdi opera without the music. These stories show that themes of love, heartbreak, and jealousy are eternal human issues. Ultimately, deities in these ancient tales are modeled on human beings, serving as a grandiose way to express human affairs and behaviors.

Ancient Mesopotamians had a large pantheon of gods. At the top were three main deities: Anu, Enlil, and Ea, followed by hundreds of other gods and goddesses. Over time, various local deities from towns and villages were integrated into a single theological system. Lesser gods were often assigned jobs in the households of the major ones, creating a structured divine hierarchy. The most powerful gods were concerned with the ruler and the fate of the country, while others had specialities like illness or the afterlife. Each had their own temple.

The relationship with the divine was also personal. When a baby was born, they were placed under the protection of a specific god, fostering a direct connection. However, this relationship was highly practical. Gods were viewed as powerful beings who could also be flawed, much like humans. Irving Finkel explains this dynamic:

They can be forgetful or uninterested or on holiday. And there are lots of ways that you have to prompt, make little sacrifices and little bribes so they do their job and keep an eye on you. So they had that kind of slightly practical view of gods, that they were a bit unpredictable, great when they were there, but not always there.

This perspective mirrors a modern human tendency. People often become more interested in the divine when they face a major illness or disaster. The need for religious connection often fluctuates and is a response to suffering. For Mesopotamians, however, this connection was more immediate. Living without light pollution, under a vast night sky, the presence of the gods felt tangible and obvious. It wasn't a matter of belief in the modern sense; it was an accepted part of reality.

They didn't believe 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. It was the prevailing system.

This acceptance extended to ghosts. It was understood that anyone who died peacefully had their spirit descend to the netherworld. People were buried quickly, often under the courtyards of their own homes. Families would then make symbolic offerings of food and liquid to the deceased through a special opening in the ground. The existence of ghosts was never questioned; it was simply part of how the world worked.

Since every person is going to die, all relationships contain a finite clause. Irving Finkel suggests it is somewhat infantile to grieve forever when someone dies because it's an expected outcome for one of the two people in any relationship. The real tragedy would be if humans were not supposed to die. However, he acknowledges a difference between theoretically knowing life ends and truly internalizing it. The persistent knowledge that the experience will end is the source of pain, not the final moment itself. This impermanence is also what makes moments precious.

Irving believes that while religious thought helps people contend with mortality, the creation of monotheistic religions was a major mistake for humanity. He argues they brought evil into the world by establishing a dogmatic framework of right and wrong.

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.

This dogmatic approach has led to historical atrocities like the Inquisitions. In contrast, polytheistic systems, like those he observed in Calcutta or studied from ancient Mesopotamia, allowed for more individuality. With many gods having various specialities, there was no single superior religion to enforce. He concludes that religious and racial prejudices are modern problems, absent in antiquity, and finds it staggering what has been done in the name of religion.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest works of literature, was written in cuneiform. It is best known from a set of 12 Assyrian library tablets. Gilgamesh was a real person, a king in Uruk, who became a legendary figure after his death, much like Alexander the Great. Stories about him were first oral before people started writing them down around 1800 BC in Sumerian or Babylonian. Eventually, these stories were woven into a long, Homeric-style epic about his adventures.

The work explores themes of humanity, immortality, and the relationship between man and the gods. Irving Finkel describes it as a "very Hollywoody kind of thing." The text still shows its roots in oral literature. For example, it includes repetitive phrases that would be unnecessary in a written story. Irving points out how this likely originated from oral performance traditions.

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 story, you don't need that. And that must be because of when there was an enacting of an oral thing, a narrator would say, and it suddenly got frozen into the text.

The act of telling stories in a group setting, like around a fire, is a natural environment where narrative flourishes among human beings. This creative principle in Homo sapiens likely surfaced at a very early age. The high quality of ancient cave paintings, for instance, is evidence of this. Irving notes that the artistic ability demonstrated in these works is "unsurpassable," suggesting that humanity has always had its share of Rembrandts. He even speculates that many cave paintings might have been created by a single, highly skilled individual who traveled from place to place.

Stories served many functions, such as teaching the young about history, famous battles, the great flood, or how inventions like fire and the wheel came to be. Lessons can be incorporated into stories, or they can emerge unintentionally. As Irving says, "if you tell a story without a moral, it is usually a moral moral, if you think about it."

A Babylonian clay tablet from 1700 BC contains a flood narrative that predates the biblical story of Noah by at least a thousand years. Irving Finkel identified the tablet when a visitor brought it to the museum. Though difficult to read, he recognized it was part of the flood story, specifically a section where the gods decide to wipe out the noisy human population of Mesopotamia because they couldn't sleep after lunch.

One god disagreed with this plan and warned a man named Atrahasis to build a boat to rescue life. The tablet provides a blueprint for this boat, including its shape and the materials needed. Surprisingly, the boat was round. It was designed as a giant coracle, a type of round boat used on Mesopotamian rivers that was known for being unsinkable. This contrasts with the coffin-shaped ark described in the Bible.

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 wipe them out and create something quieter that worked harder.

The existence of a Mesopotamian flood story was known since 1872, when George Smith discovered a similar narrative in the Epic of Gilgamesh on tablets from Nineveh. However, this new tablet, being a thousand years older, firmly established the primacy of the Mesopotamian version. The story's origin makes geographical sense, as catastrophic floods were a real threat in Mesopotamia, unlike in Jerusalem.

Irving believes the Judeans, who were exiled to Babylon as refugees, learned these local stories and recycled them. They took the Babylonian narrative and adapted it for their own purposes. While the Babylonians said the flood was a response to noise, the Hebrew Bible reframes it as a punishment for sin. This narrative of one man saving the world against a ticking clock has proven irresistible, a theme that continues from Noah all the way to modern Hollywood films.

Irving Finkel does not believe the ark from the tablet was ever built. He views it as a literary construction, a moral teaching narrative derived from the reality that people survived local floods on boats. The widespread existence of flood stories can be attributed to two things. First, missionaries spread the story around the world, where it was recycled into local consciousness. Second, similar narratives likely arose independently in different cultures, as catastrophic floods, like a great river overflowing, are a common human experience.

A shocking discovery for historian George Smith provided a definitive link between the Mesopotamian and biblical flood stories. He found a tablet from Nineveh that described three birds being released one after the other, a detail also present in the Bible. This was the clincher that proved the two stories were literarily linked, causing distress for many clergymen at the time.

In Mesopotamian society, the flood was a significant historical marker, a "cataclysmic cut across history." People spoke of times "before the flood" and "after the flood," much like modern generations might refer to life "before the war." Ancient king lists even included rulers who reigned before this great flood.

Irving dismisses the theory of a single global flood event, such as an asteroid strike proposed by Graham Hancock. He gives this a "negligible" probability, maintaining that the Mesopotamian story was inspired by a disastrous but local flood, not a global one that touched America or China. For him, the story's power is literary.

It's a literary topic 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've got to build a boat and this is what you're going to need and you've got to get on with it, sunshine, or we're sunk.'

An interesting aspect of the older, 1700 BC text is that the hero, Atrahasis, was not a king or a professional boat builder. A god had to provide him with a detailed blueprint. This selection of an ordinary person for an extraordinary task is the kind of detail that makes it such a great and enduring myth, a classic hero's journey.

A one-third scale replica of the ark was built in Kerala, India, by three specialists in reconstructing medieval Arab boats. Irving Finkel explains they used the instructions from the tablet as a blueprint. The team used a computer to determine the maximum possible size based on the strength of the wooden ribs, especially once they were coated in heavy, waterproof bitumen. The project was a success.

Irving was present for the maiden voyage and recalls a problem with the waterproofing. They couldn't get high-quality Iraqi bitumen because it's considered a cultural property and is carcinogenic, so they had to use a lower-quality Indian substitute. As a result, the boat had a small leak and needed to be bailed out. When people pointed this out as a failure, Irving had a ready response.

I said to this producer, you ever been in a rowing boat without water in the bottom? ... That's the feature of the thing.

A documentary was made about the project, but Irving was frustrated with the final product. The film included critics who dismissed the boat's design without allowing him a chance to respond to their claims. He felt it was like a fencing match where only one person was given a sword.

Irving also offers a theory on why the tablet contained such specific proportions. He believes it stems from oral tradition. Storytellers telling the flood story would have initially described the boat in vague terms, like "the biggest coracle you've ever seen." However, their audience of river people, who were expert boat builders themselves, would have demanded specifics. To satisfy them, the storytellers likely consulted coracle makers to work out plausible material proportions, which were then scaled up for the epic tale. This detailed information was eventually memorized and passed down until it was written on the tablet.

Some ancient literature exists on the cusp between purely oral and purely literary traditions. These stories were molded in an environment where people were still talking, so they had to be authentic to connect with an audience. You couldn't pull the wool over their eyes.

A similar depth of meaning can be found in the flood myth, specifically the reason given for the flood: noisy people. According to Irving Finkel, the term "noisy" is not literal. It's a euphemism for a larger problem. Before the flood, the gods had not yet created death, leading to overpopulation.

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.

After the flood, the gods instituted measures to control population growth. They created barren women, men who couldn't have children, and priestesses who did not reproduce. This reveals a sophisticated, Malthusian philosophical position on managing the species, indicating the concern was about numbers, not actual noise.

The Royal Game of Ur is a board game with 20 squares, first discovered in the 1920s by Sir Leonard Woolley. He found several boards in the royal graves at the ancient site of Ur, dating to around 2,600 BC. The Sumerian rulers were buried with the game, along with dice and pieces, suggesting they intended to play it in the afterlife. The game proved to be a massive success, spreading across the ancient world. Examples of the board have been found in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Crete. Even the pharaoh Tutankhamun had boards in his tomb.

For nearly 3,000 years, this game was a "world conqueror," much like chess or backgammon today. Irving Finkel suggests its popularity stemmed from the lack of other entertainment, like television, during the Bronze and Iron Ages. Adults had board games, which became embedded in the culture. The game spread across different languages and cultures without written rules. A merchant might see it played in a bar, find it interesting, and then try to recreate it back home. The board's layout evolved over time, eventually standardizing with 12 squares down the middle, which helped reveal the path players likely followed.

It's a race game where players use dice to move their pieces onto the board, up the central path, and off the other end. Some squares marked with rosettes likely offered advantages, like a safe spot or an extra throw. The game's enduring appeal comes from its perfect balance of luck and skill. Unlike a game of pure chance like Snakes and Ladders or pure skill like chess, the Royal Game of Ur blends probability from the dice with a measurable amount of strategy. This mix is also what makes backgammon so popular.

Irving was able to reconstruct the rules after discovering a tablet in the British Museum. Though written in the 2nd century BC, much later than the game's origin, it described rules for a descendant of the original game. By working backward, he was able to develop a workable set of rules. Today, the game has been brought back to life and is played all over the world, even in cafes in Iraq. To illustrate its power, Irving tells a story of giving a lecture at the Getty Museum. Afterward, he taught the audience how to play. Within a short time, the room was filled with competitive tension.

After a while someone said, 'I hate you, I'm never playing this game with you again.' When they'd 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.

Irving believes the desire to play games is part of human nature. They serve as a safe outlet for rivalry and hostility, sublimating these competitive instincts into a harmless activity where you can still get angry, but without real-world consequences.

In India, the concept of 'time pass' helps explain the existence of board games. 'Time pass' refers to what people do when it's too hot for any other activity, which is common for a large part of the day and year. Grandmothers would sit under trees with their grandchildren, telling stories and playing games. These games were a useful, stimulating, and beneficial way to occupy time without being overpowering. Many Indian board games, like chess or 'three in a row' type games, were played in a graceful way where winning wasn't the main point. When a game ended, another would simply begin.

Humans eventually mixed gambling into these games. Irving Finkel notes that even before money existed, people would bet on games. An interesting piece of evidence comes from a Mesopotamian school tablet containing a quote believed to be from a 'Gambler's Lament.' It reads, 'oh, my astragal, oh my astragal, woe is me, woe is me.' Astragals, or knuckle bones, were used as dice, and people would bet goods like a 'sack of this or a roomful of that' on the throw. This suggests a long history of high-stakes betting. The way games were played might have also differed between genders. For instance, some games were played among girls in harems on a hot afternoon where nothing was at stake. In contrast, a Mesopotamian rules tablet frames a game's movements and winnings in the context of a bar, where players could win food, drink, and women, reflecting a different social setting.

The British Museum is a unique and magical place, distinct from nearly all other museums in the world. Its purpose is not just to display art, but to tell the story of mankind's achievements from the very beginning. It's a celebration of the human race's struggle, triumphs, and marvelous accomplishments, without ignoring the horrible aspects of history. Irving Finkel describes it as the "narrative of the human race, as I see it, as discernible in objects."

The museum serves two vital horizons. First, it aims to represent the entire world without favoring any single culture, country, or religion. The focus is on the human species as a whole, showing how cultures overlap and learn from one another. The second horizon is the future: the unborn generations. This long-term perspective frames the museum's mission as one of sacred cultural significance, making it a "lighthouse in a universe where we are surrounded by darkness, ignorance, stupidity."

Unlike institutions like the Louvre or the Met, which are primarily museums of art focused on design and color, the British Museum is a museum of ideas. It's a place where truth, beauty, and intelligence can be discussed without apology. It also addresses religion, not by sponsoring any particular one, but by examining them objectively. Irving expresses a personal view that a sharper critique of religion's impact on humanity is needed, noting that morality, law, and love do not depend on religious belief.

A common criticism is that most of the museum's collection is not on display. However, this is a feature, not a bug. The collection is intentionally stockpiled for future examination.

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... So the benefit of distance storage and contemplation is inestimable.

Perspectives change, and what seems contemporary today will be viewed differently in the future. Storing these artifacts allows for future contemplation and re-evaluation, which is an essential part of the museum's long-term task.

When considering what wisdom ancient people had that modern humans have lost, Irving Finkel suggests they were spared things that have cluttered the essence of humanity. He points to the modern dependency on the "electronic universe" as something disastrous for humans. It acts like an addictive drug, reducing the vitality of the human component and creating a restrictive, artificial life for those crammed into cities.

While ancient people were not necessarily wiser in a prescriptive sense—they still lied, cheated, and murdered—their world allowed them to behave more naturally. Most people lived and died in the same village, largely unaware of the outside world, but this existence was more in tune with fundamental human nature.

A major casualty of the modern world, according to Irving, is language. He describes the trend of short video clips on mobile phones as "utterly wicked" because it contributes to a decline in the ability to articulate, spell, and convey clear meaning. He laments the loss of precision in English, a language he considers uniquely rich and beneficial.

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 that's ever been created, which is English, to save their lives.

Irving contrasts the clarity of well-spoken English, which leaves no room for misinterpretation, with the ambiguity of modern slang. The richness of English is vast, with the Oxford English Dictionary containing countless words most people have never heard. This vocabulary isn't acquired through simple conversation but through reading literature, a practice that builds the foundation for precise and meaningful communication.

A strong vocabulary is not just about speaking clearly; it also defines the quality of one's thoughts. This vocabulary isn't learned through everyday conversation but must be acquired from reading and listening to well-structured content. It's a pity that despite the existence of such wonderful languages, their use is often inhibited today.

However, it's useful to adopt a long-term perspective, similar to how a museum views history. Much of what seems important in the moment is ephemeral. While society grapples with catastrophes, changing speech patterns, and new technologies, most of it will be forgotten. In a century or two, people won't remember current trends like emojis.

The reality is only a few select things will last 100, 200 years from now about this moment in time. And so we have to sort of think with the big picture perspective and the slowness of time.

Instead, what will stand the test of time are the grand ideas, like Einstein's theories, the great ideological battles of the 20th century, and major human achievements such as space exploration. These are the kinds of enduring records seen in ancient cuneiform tablets. Ultimately, language, when used properly, remains a crucial tool for human communication.

Among the British Museum's collection of 130,000 cuneiform tablets, jokes are a rarity. Irving Finkel recalls one example about a mosquito landing on an elephant's back and asking, "Am I too heavy for you?"—a joke he admits wouldn't go over well in a pub today. The conversation shifts to the more modern and biting wit of satirist Tom Lehrer, whose work Irving learned by heart from his father's reel-to-reel tape recordings.

He brings up a classic Lehrer line about the rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, which captures a particular kind of detached irresponsibility that feels timeless.

Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department, says Werner for Brown.

Irving notes the paradoxical and remarkable thing about the satire of Tom Lehrer, as well as films like *Dr. Strangelove*. Decades later, their commentary on bombs and international trouble feels completely unchanged, highlighting the persistent nature of human folly and conflict.