People I (Mostly) Admire — Episode 169: Decoding the World’s First Writing
Date: October 25, 2025
Host: Steve Levitt (Freakonomics co-author)
Guest: Dr. Irving Finkel, Curator at the British Museum and expert on cuneiform
Episode Overview
In this episode, Steve Levitt interviews Dr. Irving Finkel, a renowned curator at the British Museum, about the world's first known writing system: cuneiform. The conversation explores the origins of writing in Mesopotamia, the decipherment of cuneiform, its impact on human civilization, and the surprising connections between ancient flood narratives and modern-day stories. Dr. Finkel shares his infectious enthusiasm and unique insights into this ancient technology—including his personal story of decoding a 4,000-year-old “ark” flood tablet and seeing it rebuilt for modern television.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. The Origins and Nature of Cuneiform
[02:12 – 08:25]
-
Cuneiform's Emergence:
- First appeared in ancient Iraq (Mesopotamia), between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (~3500 BC).
- Began as pictographs to represent everyday objects, then evolved into an abstract, syllabic script.
- Quote:
“Cuneiform means wedge shaped like a piece of Brie... [the signs] utilized by pressing a stylus into clay, were made up of small triangular shapes.”
— Irving Finkel [03:00]
-
Spread and Adaptability:
- Recorded Sumerian and Babylonian languages, then adapted to others in the region.
- Could handle complex grammar and sounds, enabling literature, hymns, prayers, and dictionaries.
-
Parallel with Egyptian Hieroglyphs:
- Levitt: “Do you think it was more than a coincidence... that multiple written languages emerged around the same time?” [05:38]
- Finkel argues for both independent invention and some cross-cultural influence between Mesopotamia and Egypt.
2. Writing as Administration and Social Control
[11:11 – 14:28]
- First Purpose of Writing:
- Economic records, keeping track of goods, tithes, taxes—essentially proto-accounting.
- Quote:
“There’s a whole subspecies of persons who shuffle about looking at the ground, who like nothing more than making records of absolutely trivial details, very carefully, adding them up, checking them...”
— Irving Finkel, humorously on ancient accountants [13:39]
3. The Decipherment of Cuneiform
[14:28 – 19:44]
- Complexity and Challenge:
- No spaces between words; signs with multiple meanings and sounds.
- Required scholars to “have in your mind a thing like a filing cabinet” to decode possible meanings. [14:55]
- The Breakthrough:
- Inspired by the Rosetta Stone for hieroglyphs, but for cuneiform, it was the trilingual Bebistun (Behistun) inscription in Iran containing Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite [16:53].
- Old Persian was decoded first, providing the key to the other languages.
- Scholars cross-referenced living Semitic languages (like Hebrew and Arabic) to crack Babylonian.
4. The Babylonian Flood Story and Its Discovery
[22:09 – 36:30]
-
George Smith’s Ark Tablet Discovery:
- First modern scholar to discover a cuneiform tablet with a flood narrative paralleling Noah’s Ark.
- Smith’s intense reaction:
“...he dropped the tablet and then he stood up and then he started running around the room holding his head and making funny squeaking noises. And finally he started to take his clothes off.”
— Irving Finkel, relaying museum lore [22:54]
-
The Flood Story’s Antiquity:
- Babylonian stories predate the Hebrew Bible flood narratives by up to a thousand years. [24:44]
- Finkel personally identified an even older version of the flood story, brought to him by a member of the public—a “heart stopping shock.”
-
Tablet Details and Impact:
- The rescued figure, Atrahasis (the Babylonian Noah), was told to build a round boat/coracle.
- Quote:
“The thing which was so extraordinary… it was a round boat, he specified it had to be a round boat with the dimensions.”
— Irving Finkel [31:01]
5. Reconstructing the Ark: Science Meets Mythology
[36:30 – 40:10]
- Building the Ark Today:
- Effort funded by television, building a coracle based on the ancient instructions in Kerala, India.
- Actual boat built at one-third scale due to practical constraints but using ancient methods.
- Quote:
“When I saw the shapely bottom, if I may put it this way, of our giant coracle floating on the waters under the sun, it was spectacular.”
— Irving Finkel [39:11]
- Purpose:
- Project served to merge historical investigation with hands-on experimental archaeology.
6. From Mythology to Modern Religion
[40:04 – 44:52]
-
Origins and Legacy of Flood Narratives:
- Babylonian narrative adapted in the Bible and Quran.
- Babylonian gods were motivated by humans’ noise, not sin.
- Quote:
“...the narrative in the Hebrew Bible... is derived from this old Babylonian matter... the story was too good not to utilize. But God... was very vengeful at the beginning of Genesis, it was all to do with sin and the punishment was to do with sin. And it was only at the last minute that they got away with it. And so they took the Hollywood principle of one bloke, one boat and the clock ticking to save the world, and they recycled it in the Bible and then it passed into the Quran with Nuh.”
— Irving Finkel [42:28]
-
Literary Continuity:
- Flood stories show how cultural narratives are recycled and adapted to fit new paradigms and moral messages.
7. Dr. Finkel’s Reflections on Decoding and Storytelling
Throughout the Episode
- Mixes humor and deep insight, calling himself a “decrepit nerd” (03:38), and recounts the thrill and challenges of bringing ancient stories to light.
- On the resistance from some religious communities to his findings:
“People in America wrote and said I should be tarred and feathered for my sinful destruction of the Old Testament… it didn’t really worry me because I happened to be Jewish and pleased about that.” [43:40]
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (w/ Timestamps)
-
On the beginning of writing:
“As far as we know, cuneiform writing is the oldest writing that appeared on the face of the globe… And that is where, archaeologically speaking, we find the first evidence for writing.”
— Irving Finkel [02:12] -
On decipherment’s early days:
“There’s about a thousand signs, maybe more altogether, and each sign has more than one sound and more than one meaning. So this looks like madness.”
— Irving Finkel [14:51] -
On George Smith’s revelatory moment:
“Smith had read the crucial part of the flood story, when the ark is in the water… and finally he started to take his clothes off. This is all recorded in the departmental records.”
— Irving Finkel [22:54] -
On the shock of discovering an even earlier flood tablet:
“...this piece of clay that no one had ever seen before arrived on my desk… I read the first four lines, they’re very famous lines where the God Enki tells the Babylonian equivalent of Noah, there’s going to be a flood. You’ve got to build a boat and you’ve got to build it fast.”
— Irving Finkel [27:42] -
On the round ark:
“...it was a round boat… And on many of the major waterways of the world, people utilize coracles… The coracle, apart from being cheap and easy, has the special value that it never sinks.”
— Irving Finkel [31:56] -
On the purpose of myth:
“If something’s mythological, it practically means it’s not true. Whereas ancient mythology concerns the gods, it concerns big events, creation and stories... I think it was a hypnotically fantastic story.”
— Irving Finkel [40:13]
Timestamps of Key Segments
- [02:12] – Quick primer on what cuneiform is, where it came from, and how it worked.
- [11:25] – The first uses of writing for administration and taxation.
- [14:28] – The challenge of reading and the codebreaking of cuneiform.
- [22:09] – George Smith’s Ark story discovery and its effect.
- [27:23] – Finkel recounts his own “heart-stopping” moment with the earlier flood tablet.
- [31:01] – Discovery that the Babylonian ark was round, not rectangular.
- [36:30] – Details on reconstructing the Babylonian ark for television.
- [40:10] – Discussion on myth, reality, and religious adaptation of the flood story.
- [41:49] – On how the Babylonian narrative influenced biblical traditions.
- [43:40] – Public and religious response to these discoveries.
Tone & Style
The episode mixes scholarly explanation, wit, and vivid storytelling, with Levitt’s curiosity and Finkel’s dry British humor keeping the conversation lively, accessible, and rich with historical detail.
Further Resources
- Irving Finkel’s book: The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood
- PBS NOVA episode: Secrets of Noah’s Ark (Season 42, Episode 12)
For listeners with an interest in the origins of writing, ancient civilizations, or the roots of biblical stories, this episode offers an illuminating, entertaining, and occasionally irreverent deep dive into the clay tablets that first let humanity record its hopes, fears, numbers—and its best stories.