Irving Finkel est un philologue et assyriologue britannique qui explore le monde des inscriptions cunéiformes de l'ancienne Mésopotamie. En tant que conservateur au British Museum, il est responsable de l'une des plus grandes collections de tablettes d'argile au monde, s'attachant à préserver et à comprendre méticuleusement ces anciens documents. Au-delà de ses recherches savantes, Finkel fait également appel à son imagination à travers la fiction pour enfants et a co-fondé un projet dédié à la sauvegarde de journaux intimes personnels.
Board games have been played since prehistoric times, passing from person to person and country to country all over the world. This colourful and unique book explains the origins of five of the most long-lasting games, with five fold out game boards and rules so that you can play the games yourself.
Dr Irving Finkel, curator at the British Museum, explores why the belief in ghosts is what makes us human.
THE ARK BEFORE NOAH: Decoding the Story of the Flood by Dr Irving Finkel is a compelling investigation of one of the most famous myths in the world - and how the re-discovery of an ancient tablet challenges our view of ancient history in a new and exciting way.
The Lewis chessmen were found on the Isle of Lewis in mysterious circumstances. Consisting of elaborately worked walrus ivory and whales teeth in the form of seated kings and queens, bishops, knights, warders and pawns, this curious chess set is strongly influenced by Norse culture. Of the 93 pieces known to us today, 11 pieces are in Edinburgh at the National Museum of Scotland, and 82 are in the British Museum, where they have delighted generations of visitors with their wonderfully expressive details. In this engaging story, Irving Finkel follows the many adventures of the chessmen after they came to light on a Scottish beach in the 19th century.
"The library is situated," said the short entry in the Guide to British Libraries A-L, "in pleasant rolling countryside not too far from Hereford, and is perhaps most readily accessible by private motor vehicle." This statement was quite accurate. Inaccessibility had always been one of the Library's most prized qualities. "The Last Resort Library was founded in 1962, and is a forward-looking institution with very much its own sense of mission," it continued. The truth was that the Guide compiler had never heard of the Library himself, but someone had mentioned it to him right at the last minute, and he was improvising while correcting proofs. "Researchers should be aware that, despite the size of the Library's holdings, there is no published catalogue of any kind." That's what he had been told, and it seemed only sensible to make a formal note of it. - Prologue
A Mesopotamian horror story. The landscape of this dark and powerful story is the ancient world of Assyria some 3000 years ago, a time when writing was in the world's oldest script, cuneiform, and the domination of unseen forces firmly in the hands of the state's leading Exorcist.
A strikingly-illustrated short introduction to Babylon, a powerful and sophisticated ancient city and the home of the fabled Hanging Gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, one of the 7 Wonders of the World.
The ivory chessmen were discovered in 1831 on the Isle of Lewis, and 67 pieces now reside in the British Museum. This story tells the life and times of the chess pieces from their own viewpoint. Part of the 1995 Scottish Book Fortnight promotion.
Cuneiform script on tablets of clay is, as far as we know, the oldest form of writing in the world. The choice of clay as writing medium in ancient Mesopotamia meant that records of all kinds could survive down to modern times, preserving fascinating documents from ancient civilization, written by a variety of people and societies. From reading these tablets we can understand not only the history and economics of the time but also the beliefs, ideas and superstitions. This new book will bring the world in which the cuneiform was written to life for the non-expert reader, revealing how ancient inscriptions can lead to a new way of thinking about the past. It will explain how this pre-alphabetic writing really worked and how it was possible to use cuneiform signs to record so many different languages so long ago. Richly illustrated with a wealth of fresh examples ranging from elementary school exercises to revealing private letters or beautifully calligraphic literature for the royal library, we will meet people that arent so very different from ourselves. We will read the work of many scribes from mundane record keepers to state fortune tellers, using tricks from puns to cryptography. For the first time cuneiform tablets and their messages are not remote and inaccessible, but wonderfully human documents that resonate today.
Odczytanie tekstu napisanego pismem klinowym na babilońskiej tabliczce rozpoczyna przełomowe śledztwo w sprawie jednej z najsłynniejszych opowieści na świecie - historii o potopie. Od czasów wiktoriańskich wiedziano, że historia Noego, opisana w Księdze Rodzaju i stanowiąca główny motyw w judaizmie, chrześcijaństwie i islamie, wywodzi się ze znacznie starszej opowieści pochodzącej ze starożytnego Babilonu. Ale przez wieki prawda pozostawała nieznana. W 2009 r. Irving Finkel, kurator Muzeum Brytyjskiego i światowy autorytet assyrologii, dokonał sensacyjnego odkrycia. Odczytał tekst spisany pismem klinowym na glinianej tabliczce jakieś 3600 lat temu. Okazało się, że 60 wersów zawiera nowe szczegóły mitu o potopie. To prawdopodobnie pierwszy starożytny dokument opisujący kształt arki oraz szczegółowe dane dotyczące budowy łodzi, w której babiloński Noe – Atrachasis, król miasta Szurupak, ratuje się z wezbranych wód. W książce Przed arką Noego Finkel zabiera nas w pełną przygód podróż badawczą, otwierając drzwi do fascynującego świata starożytności.