Irving L. Finkel

Finkel is a fascinating character and a very engaging reader; usually the author reading their own work is a terrible decision, here I could imagine no one else. The book gives you a state of the cuneiform writing system, an overview of the civilizations that used it, before getting into the meat of the title and describing the many tablets and versions of the flood myth that predate the Bible. The real surprise is seeing how detailed an account it is, given the staccato and formulaic languages used. Finkel describes instructions so literal and detailed (given the era) it's hard not to come away thinking there's a real event somewhere along the route of this story.… (meer)

Unusual book about cuneiform writing. Short and illustrated with photographs of cuneiform writing mostly from the British Museum. It turns out that archaeologists have uncovered an extraordinary variety of cuneiform examples, from student exercises to forgeries to official statues, covering about 2000 years. Over that time, the forms and style of the writing changed. Most likely, as with fossil finds, a whole lot of these tablets haven't been examined yet and there is more in the writing on these tablets yet to be discovered.… (meer)