001- The Dead Library of the King of the World

Listen:

Civilisation began with the brewing of beer, but followed up with another great invention: books!
In this episode, we look at the first great books ever written, and ask which we should save if civilisation is destroyed. After all, it’s happened before…
Battle of the Books - Round 1
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The Enuma Elish, also known as The Babylonian Creation Myth (available in various editions; Oxford World Classics combines it with Gilgamesh and other stories in ‘Myths From Mesopotamia’)
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The Epic of Gilgamesh (there are various different versions, but Penguin Classics has an easy to read translation which combines the surviving fragments into a short, coherent whole)
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Wildcard: The Tale of Sinuhe (combined with other Ancient Egyptian short stories by Oxford World Classics)
Shortcuts
No good shortcuts this week (with absolutely no apologies to Russell Crowe and Peter Ustinov), but check out Delacroix’s painting of the Death of Sardanapalus (en.wikipedia.o...) - otherwise known as Ashurbanipal: his civilisation was destroyed, but fortunately his best books survived
Battle of the Booze
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Beavertown Neck Oil IPA - hoppy and gluggable: just the way Gilgamesh liked it!

Beavertown Smog Rocket Porter - dark and complex: perfect for drinking through a straw…
Poll of Champions
We want your votes! Which book would you save? Vote here (docs.google.co...) !
Feedback
We’d love to hear from you with thoughts, comments, questions and suggestions - email us at [e-mail] (mailto:[e-mail]?) .

[@carlkim2577]

I would love to listen. But pls improve the audio quality.

[@nancinyols8015]

What an interesting way to spend a Monday night. Looking forward to more.

[@johnbruce2868]

I studied Akkadian cuneiform at university before becoming a psychotherapist and working with troops suffering from PTSD. Aside from conflating Sumerians (warm beer) with Old Babylonians (Laws of Hammurapi) with an Assyrian king, Aššur-bāni-apli, I enjoyed listening. It's rare for people to discuss Enūma Eliš on YT. I read it in the 1980's under the direction of Prof. W.G. Lambert. Personally, I'm rather fond of the Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylon (Luckenbill 1926) which provides us with unabridged accounts of war-crimes on a grand scale, worthy of some reflection in our shallow, presumptuous, age. p.s. Babylon originates in bab ilī, meaning 'Gate of the Gods'. Translated names have so much to tell us about history and culture.
Although currently ignored by Scottish academia, who refuse to either acknowledge, or to read and criticise the research (it embarrasses them too much), I believe I have translated the Pictish ogham inscriptions, the last untranslated language of the U.K. This is not decipherment, the language is not encrypted. It is graphemic analysis which identifies (empirically) the unique, but similar to Welsh, orthography. This enables the ogham to be read as a creole (advanced pidgin) which employed the Old Irish lexicon as the lexifier. It's very simple and quite fascinating. New proclamations, new pagan and ecclesiastical inscriptions giving insight into the meaning of Pictish symbols. Plus indications that, under the influence of Christianity brought about by a communications revolution (the development of books), the Picts went woke, were made ashamed of their pagan past and destroyed their own culture. Bit like the modern communications revolution. Currently being prepared for publication I'll send it to you, if interested.