Cracking Ancient Codes: Cuneiform Writing - with Irving Finkel

Why HN readers recommended it

HN users recommend it as a delightful, well-told account of how cuneiform developed and was decoded.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

The Royal Institution

Topic

cuneiform decipherment

Format

lecture

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

3

HN mentions in dataset

5

Recommendation years in dataset

2020–2024

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Irving Finkel's lectures are marvelous. Watching his lecture on the decipherment of cuneiform is a delight, both in subject matter and in the delivery of a well worn and thoroughly polished presentation. (If only all professors were so articulate and passionate.) [VIDEO]

• Cuneiform clay tablets have a survival advantage over other materials, so it's anyone's guess when the first well-defined symbolic representation of spoken language system was invented, it may have been lost to history entirely. Highly recommend Prof Irving Fink's talk to Royal Institution on the …

• Here[1] is a video covering how cuneiform (the writing system) was deciphered, most of it was solved after they found an inscription in three different languages. [1] [VIDEO]