Irving Finkel
Person on 3 sites
Assyriologist at the British Museum, curator in charge of its cuneiform tablet collection, where he has worked for over forty-five years.
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27 beliefs on korrents (opens korrents.com)
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The genius of writing was the moment somebody realised a picture could stand for a sound rather than for a thing. (opens korrents.com)
“And once they had the idea that you could write sounds with pictures, that’s the crucial thing, that a picture of a foot not only meant foot but it meant the sound of the word for foot.”
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The archaeological record of early writing is misleading, because people across the Middle East were sending each other messages long before the Sumerians. (opens korrents.com)
“And my hunch is that the archaeological evidence that we have on this score is ultimately misleading, because I think this: that probably for a very, very long time before the Sumerians, people in the world, the world…”
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There was writing at Gobekli Tepe, thousands of years before Sumer, and one stamp seal is enough to infer it. (opens korrents.com)
“Well, that seal from Gobekli Tepe is a raindrop from which I infer writing, and it’s perfectly possible they all wrote on flat leaves.”
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The genius of writing was the moment somebody realised a picture could stand for a sound rather than for a thing. (opens korrents.com)