HackerTube.dev

Irving Finkel | The Ark Before Noah: A Great Adventure

The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures · 5.1M views · 2016-07-20 · 58:19

Open on YouTube ↗

If playback is restricted in your region, try opening the original video. Use Mark watched to add it to your marked videos.

Overview

Irving Finkel of the British Museum tells how a 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet came to him for examination. It revealed the oldest known account of Noah's Ark and led to a book and a documentary.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as a funny, fascinating talk on cuneiform tablets and the ancient world by an engaging curator.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 5 months · HN mentions 2021–2025

Topics

World historyReligion, belief & skepticismLanguage & linguistics
Search by tags
cuneiformnoah's arkbritish museumclay tabletsbabylon

What people said

Jun8 · 2025-11 · Strong recommendation

If you are interesting anything related to cuneiform writing or ancient Mesopotamian culture , Irving Finkel, a British Museum curator, is a treasure. Here he is teaching how to write cuneiform: [LINK] Here is a hilarious talk he gave at Chicago's Oriental Institute on Noah's Ark: [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
AndrewOMartin · 2025-10 · Strong recommendation

Not to mention his book, about when he found an Cuneiform tablet circa 1800BC telling the story of Noah and the flood, which included more detailed instructions on how to build an ark than the biblical accounts and so he went and built it. Nice article: [LINK] Excellent lecture: [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗
cjs_ac · 2023-08 · Strong recommendation

This lecture by Dr Finkel on how he discovered the original Babylonian version of the Noah's Ark story is equal parts fascinating and hilarious: [VIDEO]

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

HN summaries and labels may contain AI errors. HN dates refer to discussions, not video publication.

HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

Views, duration and playback status refresh separately from the published catalog. When an update fails, existing data remains visible.

Selection checks
  • SaaS & AI candidates: Topic keywords do not match
  • Editor-approved picks: Editorial review is required

Rule matches identify candidates. They do not guarantee video quality or financial results.

About the library and its sources