Irving Finkel – författare

The revelatory, unputdownable true story of how a British Museum expert decoded the Old Testament''s Story of the Flood.''One of the most important human documents ever discovered . . . his conclusions will send ripples into the world of creationism and among ark hunters.'' - Guardian''The charged thrill of Finkel''s chase permeates the book - the pages don''t just join dots, they supply new pieces for a beautiful, Bronze-Age jigsaw-puzzle . . . Scholarly and droll, Finkel''s writing is also eccentrically vivid . . . it is a joy.'' - Bettany Hughes, The TimesIn The Ark Before Noah, British Museum expert Dr Irving Finkel reveals how decoding the symbols on a 4,000 year old piece of clay enable a radical new interpretation of the Noah''s Ark myth. A world authority on the period, Dr Finkel''s enthralling real-life detective story began with a most remarkable event at the British Museum: the arrival one day in 2008 of a single, modest-sized Babylonian cuneiform tablet - the palm-sized clay rectangles on which our ancestors created the first documents.

It had been brought in by a member of the public and this particular tablet proved to be of quite extraordinary importance. Not only does it date from about 1850 BC, but it is a copy of the Babylonian Story of the Flood, a myth from ancient Mesopotamia revealing among other things, instructions for building a large boat to survive a flood.

But Dr Finkel''s pioneering work didn''t stop there. Through another series of enthralling discoveries he has been able to decode the story of the Flood in ways which offer unanticipated revelations to readers of The Ark Before Noah.

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Acclaim for The Ark Before Noah:

''A serious book, but rarely a heavy one: in a sprightly, good-humoured way, Finkel communicates the thrill of true scholarship . . . it feels fresh and exciting here.'' - The Sunday Times

''A painstaking and lively investigation . . . there are remarkable scholarly insights to admire . . . brilliant.'' - Literary Review''Finkel''s account is wryly and entertainingly told.'' - Tom Holland, Guardian

''A gem of a book.'' - The New Yorker

''Finkel is a master at deciphering these ancient cuneiform clay tablets, but this book is far more than a fine piece of detective work: it is a humane work of scholarship that enlarges the soul.'' - Observer

The must-read exploration of the earliest human ghost stories from leading expert Irvine Finkel, author of The Ark Before Noah''It''s enthralling stuff, mixing the scholarly with the accessible and placing storytelling right at the heart of the human experience.'' - History RevealedThere are few things more in common across cultures than the belief in ghosts. Ghosts inhabit something of the very essence of what it is to be human. Whether we personally ''believe'' or not, we are all aware of ghosts and the rich mythologies and rituals surrounding them. They have inspired, fascinated and frightened us for centuries - yet most of us are only familiar with the vengeful apparitions of Shakespeare, or the ghastly spectres haunting the pages of 19th century gothic literature. But their origins are much, much older...The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies takes us back to the very beginning. A world-renowned authority on cuneiform, the form of writing on clay tablets which dates back to 3400BC, Irving Finkel has embarked upon an ancient ghost hunt, scouring these tablets to unlock the secrets of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians to breathe new life into the first ghost stories ever written. In The First Ghosts, he uncovers an extraordinarily rich seam of ancient spirit wisdom which has remained hidden for nearly 4000 years, covering practical details of how to live with ghosts, how to get rid of them and bring them back, and how to avoid becoming one, as well as exploring more philosophical questions: what are ghosts, why does the idea of them remain so powerful despite the lack of concrete evidence, and what do they tell us about being human?