cuneiform

Irving Finkel of the British Museum lectures at the Royal Institution on the invention and decipherment of cuneiform writing in Mesopotamia, and why it is so hard to translate.

British Museum curator Irving Finkel teaches how to write cuneiform, with a colleague following along. It is a short, lively introduction to the script.

Irving Finkel of the British Museum tells how a 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet came to him for examination. It revealed the oldest known account of Noah's Ark and led to a book and a documentary.

Episode 8 of the Fall of Civilizations podcast, a roughly two and a half hour history of the Sumerians. It covers their mysterious origins, invention of writing and mathematics, great early cities and eventual collapse, with myths, proverbs and recreated music.

Tom Scott plays the Royal Game of Ur against British Museum curator Irving Finkel, who deciphered its rules from a cuneiform tablet. Finkel teaches the game and explains its history as the oldest playable board game.

NativLang's 47-minute animated documentary traces the birth and evolution of writing, from early cave marks to modern scripts. It presents the history of the world's writing systems as a story.

Peter Pringle sings the opening of the Epic of Gilgamesh in Sumerian, accompanied by a reconstructed ancient instrument. The description gives background on Sumer, cuneiform and how little is known about the language's pronunciation.