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The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies Paperback – February 21, 2023
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'It's enthralling stuff, mixing the scholarly with the accessible and placing storytelling right at the heart of the human experience.' - History Revealed
'A fascinating journey' - Yorkshire Post
'Marvellous...Finkel is an expert in Mesopotamian cultures at the British Museum, and is one of the most clever, and nicest, of people it has ever been my pleasure to encounter...A fascinating journey' - The Scotsman
There 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?
- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHodder
- Publication dateFebruary 21, 2023
- Dimensions5 x 0.9 x 7.75 inches
- ISBN-10152930329X
- ISBN-13978-1529303292
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About the Author
Dr Irving Finkel is Senior Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Middle East Department of the British Museum. He is the curator in charge of the world's largest collection of cuneiform clay tablets, comprising more than 130,000 pieces. His work involves reading and translating all sorts of inscriptions, sometimes working on ancient archives to identify manuscripts that belong together, or even join to one another. With publications, lecturing and broadcasting, Dr Finkel has brought these inscriptions and their writers to a modern audience. He is the author of The Ark Before Noah.
Product details
- Publisher : Hodder; Reprint edition (February 21, 2023)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 152930329X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1529303292
- Item Weight : 9.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 5 x 0.9 x 7.75 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #195,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #57 in Ancient Mesopotamia History
- #70 in Assyria, Babylonia & Sumer History
- #181 in Ghosts & Hauntings
- Customer Reviews:
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It's an academic, non-fiction book so it's not a story book. It's teaching you about the people who live between the two rivers, the Tigress and the Euphrates. It can be a little dry if you're not used to academic literature but it's not difficult to read. I highly recommend this book.
Top reviews from other countries
He shines a new light on a very interesting subject.
When someone died they were often buried under the family home. Their spirit left the body to become a shadow in the Netherworld. Usually, it was preferable to keep these ghosts in the Netherworld, but some could not or did not go there, and they could be bothersome to the living. Others could be summoned temporarily by expert necromancers. Two chapters are devoted to “Ghost Magic”, including discussions about anti-ghost amulets, ghost spells and the creation of figurines for the anti-ghost rituals.
THE BOOK begins with the Author’s Note, which acts as an introduction, followed by 15 chapters covering 288 pages, a substantial sections of Endnotes, a Bibliography and an Index (2).
THE ILLUSTRATIONS: There are a few black and white matt illustrations of various sizes embedded in the text and a section of 8 pages containing 18 photographs, mostly of clay tablets from the British Museum. One of the photographs is “The Queen of the Night”, an Old Babylonian terracotta probably depicting the goddess Inanna. This picture is used as the basis of the photomontage on the book’s front cover. There are no maps. At minimum, I would have liked a map of Mesopotamia, perhaps marked with the major locations mentioned in the text and the areas occupied over time by the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians.
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(1) Irving Finkel is the Senior Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Middle East Department of the British Museum. He is curator of the world’s largest collection of cuneiform clay tablets. He mentions at the start of the book that “… my doctoral thesis on Babylonian exorcistic magic contained cuneiform spells for driving ghosts away, the first time that Mesopotamian ghosts in particular reared their heads over the parapets, crooking a bony finger.” (Author’s Note, page XI)
(2) The book’s contents are:
Author’s Note (4 pages)
.1. Ghosts at the Beginning
.2. Ancient Mesopotamia: Home to the First Ghosts
.3. The Death and Burial of Kings
.4. Everyday Houses, Burials and Ghosts
.5. Living With Ghosts
.6. Ghost Magic 1: Words and Deeds
.7. Ghost Magic 2: Pictures and Conversations
.8. The Descents of Inanna and Ishtar and Other Netherworld Stories
.9. Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Netherworld
.10. Part 1: An Assyrian Prince in the Netherworld
.11. Part 2: Who was the Prince?
.12. The Delicate Art of Necromancy
.13. A Brief Enquiry as to What the Inhabitants of Mesopotamia Believed About Their Netherworld and the Ultimate Fate of Those Who Languished in Same
.14. Afterword
.15. User’s Guide: Telling Your Ghost From Your Demon
Endnotes (32 pages)
Bibliography (12 pages)
Acknowledgements (1 page); Picture Acknowledgements (3 pages)
Index (6 pages)