Irving Finkel Teaches Cuneiform | The Ancients
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1h 14m
In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Irving Finkel to uncover how cuneiform actually worked and how you would write it yourself.
More than five thousand years ago, a revolutionary script emerged in the fertile lands of Mesopotamia that would transform how people counted, governed, worshipped and told stories. This was cuneiform, the world’s earliest known writing system.
From humble beginnings as simple pictograms tracking beer and grain, to the wedge-shaped signs that recorded myths, laws and epic tales long before the Bible, this episode explores how cuneiform spread across Sumer, Babylon, Assyria and Persia — and why these clay tablets remain one of archaeology’s richest windows into the ancient world.
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