Lex Fridman Podcast #487 – Irving Finkel: Deciphering Secrets of Ancient Civilizations & Flood Myths

Date: December 12, 2025
Guest: Dr. Irving Finkel (Curator, The British Museum, expert in cuneiform and ancient languages)
Host: Lex Fridman

Episode Overview

This episode features a compelling and often humorous discussion between Lex Fridman and Dr. Irving Finkel, a renowned expert in ancient languages, cuneiform script, and Mesopotamian civilization. Their wide-ranging conversation traces the origins and history of writing, the mysteries and mechanics of cuneiform, the challenges of linguistic decipherment, the significance of ancient flood myths, and even humanity’s ancient love for board games. Dr. Finkel also offers philosophical reflections on translation, the nature of wisdom, and the purpose of museums.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of Writing and Cuneiform

• First Writing Systems (09:53–15:59)

  • Writing as a "gigantic step" for humanity, estimated around 3,500 BCE in Mesopotamia (between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers), initially as pictographs.
  • Evolution from pictographic to phonetic writing: symbols coming to represent not only objects but sounds, enabling grammar and more complex ideas.
  • “The essence of writing is that there’s an agreed system of symbols... that can be played back...”
    — Irving Finkel, 10:22
  • The invention of lexicography (systematic sign lists) ensured the survival and consistency of cuneiform over millennia.

• Cuneiform System (15:59–18:20)

  • Named from the Latin “cuneus” (wedge), referencing the script's wedge-shaped markings.
  • Utilized for a vast range of content: business, administration, literature, law, magic, and medicine; immense durability due to clay tablets.

2. The Invention of Sound-Encoding in Writing

• Revolutionary Leap (18:20–22:00)

  • The “genius” move was using signs to encode sounds—transforming static pictographs into a system capable of representing any language and idea.
  • Finkel challenges orthodoxy, arguing that phonetic systems might have preceded or paralleled pictographic writing among interacting ancient cultures—"Highly controversial, many assyriologists would leave the room." (22:00)

• Older Predecessors and Gobekli Tepe (23:20–29:02)

  • Gobekli Tepe (ca. 9,000 BCE) possibly had a form of stamp-based writing.
  • “The seal from Gobekli Tepe is a raindrop from which I infer writing.”
    — Irving Finkel, 27:48
  • The idea: ancient societies needed writing to coordinate large-scale architecture and social organization well before Mesopotamian pictographs.

3. Challenges and Limits of Decipherment

• The ‘Raindrop and Waterfall’ Analogy (29:02–34:09)

  • Our surviving cuneiform tablets are “just a raindrop compared to the waterfall” — a tiny sample of what was produced (31:55).
  • Libraries like Ashurbanipal's at Nineveh were likely pillaged for their best content, leaving today's finds as random remnants, not a curated canon.

• Cuneiform Decipherment & Its Complexity (34:24–48:45)

  • Written in complex syllabary, not an alphabet; multiple signs per syllable, multiple values per sign.
  • The decipherment breakthrough came from the multilingual Behistun Inscription (Bisutun), a “Rosetta Stone” for Mesopotamia (42:23).
  • Sumerian, written in cuneiform, is a language isolate with no known relatives—a “bewitching thing” (38:19).

4. On Translation and the Nuances of Ancient Language

• Limits and Subtleties of Language (54:52–61:24)

  • Babylonian (Akkadian) rivaled Arabic and English in expressiveness.
  • Much ancient literature (especially omens) is built on modal subtleties—“could, might, should, ought”—which grammatically aren’t marked, but are understood contextually.
  • “Translation is part archaeology, part detective work, part poetry.” — Lex Fridman, paraphrased, 59:51

• Art and Philosophy of Translation (61:24–63:36)

  • No word ever maps exactly onto another; dictionaries like the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary are monumental, but translation always involves judgment and context.
  • Good translation requires reading fluency, technical understanding, and creative inference for missing or ambiguous content.

5. Humanity, Divinity, and Civilization

• Relationship to the Divine and Afterlife (65:01–72:18)

  • Polytheistic pantheon: Anu, Enlil, Ea at the top; hundreds of deities overall; gods were woven into family life and were taken for granted—not a matter of faith but of fact.
  • Ghosts (spirits of the dead) assumed as reality; afterlife seen as a return to the netherworld, reinforced with ritual offerings and home burials.
  • Mortality was accepted as a given, not a tragedy; Finkel shares a blunt view: “If you are 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?” (71:39)

• Religion and its Consequences (73:07–74:28)

  • Finkel critiques monotheism as a source of dogmatic division and conflict, suggesting polytheistic systems were more pluralistic.

6. Epic of Gilgamesh and Storytelling

• Earliest Written Literature (74:28–80:08)
  • Epic of Gilgamesh, one of humanity’s oldest stories, preserves oral storytelling patterns (speaker tags, etc.).
  • Fireside storytelling (oral tradition) must stretch back into prehistory; the capacity for art and narrative is ancient and universal.

7. Flood Myths and the Ark Tablet

• Discovery and Significance (80:21–93:36)

  • Finkel recounts discovering and decoding a Babylonian “Ark Tablet” (ca. 1700 BCE) detailing instructions for a round, coracle-style ark—predating the biblical Noah narrative.
  • Strong parallels between the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Biblical flood stories establish “literary dependence.”
  • “The primacy of the Mesopotamian matter was established... you never get floods in Jerusalem. But in Mesopotamia, they had floods.” (85:56)
  • Recounts building a working, bitumen-covered coracle as a replica, confirming the plausibility of the ancient description.
  • Flood myths likely originated from real, localized catastrophic events, not worldwide disasters.

• Storytelling, Myth, and Morality (93:36–101:45)

  • Flood myths are enduringly compelling as stories about a single “chosen” individual saving the world.
  • The “noisy people” motif is interpreted as a metaphor for “too many people”—a Malthusian explanation for the flood as a reset, with subsequent institution of mechanisms (infertility, etc.) to limit population.

8. Ancient Board Games: The Royal Game of Ur

• History, Spread, and Rediscovery (102:00–110:46)
  • The Game of Ur (board of 20 squares) spread from Sumer around 2600 BCE throughout the ancient Near East and Egypt, lasting nearly 3,000 years.
  • Finkel reconstructed the rules from a late tablet; the game balances strategy and luck, much like modern backgammon.
  • “If you have a good balance between chance and strategy... it works out rather well.” (109:00)
  • Board games speak to a basic human appetite for competition, chance, strategy, and “time pass.”

9. On Museums, Memory, and Human Wisdom

• Purpose of the British Museum (114:44–122:08)

  • The British Museum is not simply a collection of objects or art; it’s a “lighthouse in a universe where we are surrounded by darkness, ignorance, stupidity, uninterest, disinterest, skepticism...” (115:00)
  • Its mission is to serve humanity as a whole and preserve knowledge for the unborn.

• Ancient vs. Modern Wisdom (122:08–129:03)

  • Finkel decries the impoverishment of language and thought caused by social media and the “electronic universe.”
  • Argues ancient people were neither less intelligent nor fundamentally different in their emotional and intellectual capacities.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Writing’s Invention:
  “Once they had the idea that you could write sounds with pictures, that's the crucial thing... you're liberated from pictographic writing into a position where you can record language.” — Irving Finkel (10:53)
• On the Limits of Archaeological Evidence:
  "Our surviving cuneiform tablets are just a raindrop compared to the waterfall of thousands of years of humans." — Lex Fridman (29:02)
• On Ancient Religion:
  “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…” — Irving Finkel (69:52)
• On the Flood Myth and Narrative Power:
  “That narrative is irresistible, that one man can save the world, if he's lucky, in time, from disaster. So it starts off with Utnapishtim, and it goes on to Noah and then it goes on to Hollywood.” — Irving Finkel (90:21)
• On Translation:
  "Translation is part archaeology, part detective work, part poetry." — Lex Fridman (59:51)
• On Museums’ Mission:
  "We represent the whole world with no injudicious attention paid to any one or other culture... It’s the human species we try to tell the narrative of in its own right." — Irving Finkel (115:00)
• On Ancient and Modern Language:
  "The thing which is so exquisite about English is like with a barrister, you can make a case which is absolutely wonderful because it says exactly what it means and there’s no wriggle room... That’s exactly right." — Irving Finkel (127:08, 128:50)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Writing’s Origins and Evolution — 09:53–18:20
• The "Genius" of Phonetic Writing — 18:20–22:00
• Gobekli Tepe and Ancient Communication — 23:20–29:02
• Library of Ashurbanipal & What We're Missing — 31:45–34:09
• Decipherment and Rosetta Stone of Cuneiform — 34:24–42:23
• Translation as Art and Science — 54:52–63:36
• Epic of Gilgamesh and Literature — 74:28–80:08
• Flood Myths & Ark Tablet — 80:21–101:45
• Ancient Board Games and The Royal Game of Ur — 102:00–110:46
• Wisdom of Ancients & Museums’ Role — 114:44–129:03

Episode Tone and Style

• Richly informed, humorous, and philosophical.
• Irving Finkel mixes playful British wit ("They didn't believe in ghosts. They took them for granted.”) with deeply erudite insights.
• Lex Fridman steers the conversation with humility, curiosity, and the occasional playful nudge toward controversy (“You just non stop start trouble. Common sense. You're going to get both of us canceled today.” — 34:03)
• Both speak with a sense of awe for humanity’s enduring search for meaning and a drive to decode the past.

For Further Interest

• Epic of Gilgamesh
• The Royal Game of Ur
• Translation & Chicago Assyrian Dictionary
• Flood Myths
• Purpose and Philosophy of Museums

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in languages, ancient civilizations, the process of historical discovery, or the foundations of human culture and knowledge. Dr. Finkel’s wit and depth make the ancient world vivid, and the themes transcend time: how we capture meaning, wisdom, and the human story itself.