What most historians get wrong about ancient history | Irving Finkel and Lex Fridman

Quick Overview

Historian Irving Finkel argues that what most historians get wrong about ancient history, particularly regarding the Sumerians and the Indus Valley Civilization, is underestimating their sophisticated record-keeping and the continuity of knowledge transmission, pointing out that the Assyrian Library of Ashurbanipal contained over 30,000 cuneiform tablets, proving a high level of bureaucratic and intellectual organization, contrary to the idea that ancient people operated purely on instinct or myth.

Key Points: The vast Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh (7th century BC) contained over 30,000 cuneiform tablets covering literature, science, religion, and administration, including the Epic of Gilgamesh. Finkel asserts that the idea that ancient civilizations like the Sumerians or Babylonians only wrote on perishable materials is wrong; thousands of clay tablets survived, documenting everything from taxes to literature. The assumption that ancient writing systems like the Indus script (2600–1900 BC) are indecipherable is questioned, although Finkel notes that the available evidence is limited to seals, not long texts. Finkel criticizes the modern tendency to generalize about ancient peoples, stating that the evidence shows a highly organized, bureaucratic society (like the Ur III period) that maintained records of everything, including revenues and offerings. The destruction of the Library of Ashurbanipal was not a malicious act against knowledge but a result of the Assyrian capital being conquered and burned by the Elamites and Babylonians, who then took the tablets with them. The Assyrians, who inherited Sumerian culture, were highly literate, speaking Sumerian and Babylonian fluently, indicating a long tradition of knowledge transfer, which Finkel contrasts with the modern view that ancient people lacked this continuity.

Context: This video features an interview between Lex Fridman and Irving Finkel, a renowned Assyriologist and curator at the British Museum, specializing in cuneiform tablets. The discussion centers on correcting common misconceptions historians hold about ancient Mesopotamian and related civilizations, particularly concerning literacy, bureaucracy, and the preservation of knowledge, using examples like the massive collection of clay tablets found in the Library of Ashurbanipal and the Indus Valley seals.