Irving Finkel
Assyriologist and curator of cuneiform tablets at the British Museum; historian of board games.
At a glance
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- Irving Finkel is an English philologist and Assyriologist.
- He has been a curator at the British Museum from 1976, responsible for reading and translating its collection of about 130,000 cuneiform tablets.
- He worked out the rules of the Royal Game of Ur, wrote The Ark Before Noah (2014) about a Babylonian flood tablet describing a round ark, and founded the Great Diary Project.
Key facts
- Born
- 1951; grew up in Palmers Green, North London1
- British Museum
- Assistant Keeper from 1976; curates the cuneiform tablet collection1
- Education
- PhD in Assyriology, University of Birmingham, under Wilfred G. Lambert1
- Books
- The Ark Before Noah (2014); Cuneiform, with Jonathan Taylor (2015); The First Ghosts (2021)1
- Board games
- Determined the rules of the Royal Game of Ur; on the editorial board of Board Game Studies1
- Founded
- The Great Diary Project, which archives the diaries of ordinary people1
Links
Sources
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