If the Babylonian underworld is anything like it was described, then they’re all still there. “I want people to know about this culture. He hopes to exhibit the Babylonian tablet, noting that such an artefact brings us closer to our ancestors: “All the fears and weaknesses and characteristics that make the human race so fascinating, assuredly were there in spades 3,500 years ago. That was dismissed by sceptics, but it turns out that the original floor under the present floor was actually low, which means that they were about right.” “In the King’s Library, more than one person has seen a head and shoulders moving along but at a peculiar height. He himself has never seen a ghost, “even in the shadier vaults of the British Museum”, which is “riddled with ghosts”, he said. Its discovery features in Finkel’s forthcoming book, The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies, to be published on 11 November by Hodder & Stoughton. The ghost has appeared just in time for Halloween. The text ends with a warning: “Do not look behind you!”įinkel believes the tablet was part of a library of magic in the house of an exorcist or in a temple. You the figurines together with their equipment and place them in position… and say as follows, Shamash. You draw the curtain like that of the diviner. You set in place a special vessel and set up a juniper censer with juniper. “At sunrise towards the sun you make the ritual arrangements and set up two carnelian vessels of beer. You equip her fully with bed, chair, mat and towel you give her a comb and a flask. You wrap the woman in four red garments and clothe her in a purple cloth. The ritual involves making figurines of a man and a woman: “You dress the man in an everyday shift and equip him with travel provisions. While half the tablet is missing and it is small enough to fit in a person’s hand, the back bears an extensive text with the instructions for dealing with a ghost that “seizes hold of a person and pursues him and cannot be loosed”. It is a Guinness Book of Records object because how could anybody have a drawing of a ghost which was older?” But when you examine it and hold it under a lamp, those figures leap out at you across time in the most startling way. Photograph: Dave Cherryįinkel said: “You’d probably never give it a second thought because the area where the drawings are looks like it’s got no writing. Irving Finkel, a world authority on cuneiform script, tells the story of his ghostly discovery in The First Ghosts. Forgotten since its acquisition by the museum in the 19th century, the tablet has never even been exhibited. The drawing had been missed as the ghost only comes to life when viewed from above and under a light. “That somebody thinks they can get rid of a ghost by giving them a bedfellow is quite comic.”Īs a world authority on cuneiform, a system of writing used in the ancient Middle East, Finkel realised that the tablet had been incorrectly deciphered previously. There’s very high-quality writing there and immaculate draughtsmanship. Something that everybody knew was that the way to get rid of the old bugger was to marry him off. ‘Oh God, Uncle Henry’s back.’ Maybe Uncle Henry’s lost three wives. “You can’t help but imagine what happened before. The final analysis was that what this ghost needed was a lover,” he said.
You can imagine a tall, thin, bearded ghost hanging about the house did get on people’s nerves. “It’s obviously a male ghost and he’s miserable. He is shown walking with his arms outstretched, his wrists tied by a rope held by the female, while an accompanying text details a ritual that would dispatch them happily to the underworld.ĭr Irving Finkel, curator of the Middle Eastern department at the British Museum, said the “absolutely spectacular object from antiquity” had been overlooked until now. It is part of an exorcist’s guide to getting rid of unwanted ghosts by addressing the particular malaise that brought them back to the world of the living – in this case, a ghost in desperate need of a companion.
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