# What most historians get wrong about ancient history | Irving Finkel and Lex Fridman Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY7am_wafkU Recap page: https://rapidrecap.app/video/EY7am_wafkU Generated: 2025-12-13T05:02:35.412+00:00 --- ## 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. ![Screenshot at 00:31: A slide displaying examples of Steatite stamp seals with undeciphered Indus script from the Indus Valley Civilisation \(c. 2600–1900 BC\), illustrating the type of limited, non-textual evidence available for that period.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/EY7am_wafkU/00-00-31.png) **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. ## Detailed Analysis Irving Finkel strongly refutes the common historical assumption that ancient civilizations, particularly the Sumerians, only recorded significant information on perishable materials like papyrus or wood. He stresses that the survival of thousands of clay tablets proves they possessed sophisticated administrative and intellectual systems. He cites the Library of Ashurbanipal, assembled by the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal in Nineveh, which contained over 30,000 cuneiform tablets documenting literature, science, religion, and administration, including the Epic of Gilgamesh. Finkel argues that this vast archive demonstrates a highly centralized bureaucracy and an advanced intellectual life, contradicting the notion that these societies were primitive or only concerned with immediate needs. He highlights that the Assyrians themselves were fluent in Sumerian and Babylonian and actively promoted the preservation of this knowledge, sometimes even importing tablets from other regions. Finkel contrasts this with the Indus Valley Civilization, where surviving evidence is limited to short inscriptions on seals, making comprehensive understanding difficult. He also discusses the fall of Nineveh, where the library's contents were not necessarily destroyed out of malice but were taken as spoils of war by the conquering Elamites and Babylonians, who then continued to use the clay tablets for record-keeping, ensuring their survival. Finkel believes modern historians often project modern biases onto the past, underestimating the intellectual depth and continuity of these ancient cultures. ### Ancient Literacy and Record Keeping - The existence of thousands of surviving cuneiform tablets from the Ur III period (2112-2004 BC) and the Library of Ashurbanipal (over 30,000 tablets) proves Sumerian/Assyrian societies were highly bureaucratic and literate, contradicting assumptions about reliance on perishable media - Evidence of this is shown via images of cuneiform tablets (3:11) and the library shelves (4:32). ### Indus Valley Script - The Indus Valley Civilization's writing (2600–1900 BC) remains undeciphered, limited to short inscriptions on seals (0:31), unlike the extensive administrative records from Mesopotamia. ### The Fall of Nineveh - The destruction of Ashurbanipal's library occurred when the city was conquered by the Babylonians and Elamites; they transported the tablets rather than destroying the entire collection, indicating the value of the records even to the conquerors (5:50). ### Critique of Modern Historical Assumptions - Finkel criticizes the assumption that ancient peoples lacked continuity or sophisticated thought, pointing out that the Assyrians inherited and promoted Mesopotamian knowledge, viewing their rulers (like Ashurbanipal) as intellectual patrons (4:52, 6:04). ### The Nature of Ancient Rulers - Assyrian kings, like Ashurbanipal, were not just conquerors but patrons who actively collected and organized knowledge from across their empire, viewing it as a 'giant brain' (4:40, 6:04). ![Screenshot at 00:31: Steatite stamp seals with undeciphered Indus script from the Indus Valley Civilisation \(c. 2600–1900 BC\).](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/EY7am_wafkU/00-00-31.png) ![Screenshot at 02:35: Reconstruction of the city of Ur during the Ur III period \(c. 2112-2004 BC\), highlighting centralized bureaucracy and large public works documented on tablets.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/EY7am_wafkU/00-02-35.png) ![Screenshot at 04:32: Visual representation of The Library of Ashurbanipal, showing shelves filled with over 30,000 cuneiform tablets.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/EY7am_wafkU/00-04-32.png) ![Screenshot at 06:36: Lex Fridman laughing after the guest suggests they might both be 'cancelled' today, showing a lighthearted moment in the serious discussion.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/EY7am_wafkU/00-06-36.png) ![Screenshot at 07:00: A dramatic view of Earth from space, illustrating a visual transition point in the podcast.](https://ss.rapidrecap.app/screens/EY7am_wafkU/00-07-00.png)