Dr Irving Finkel: The First Ghosts

YEOVIL LITERARY FESTIVAL 2021
WESTLANDS BALLROOM

Dr Irving Finkel, author and Assistant Keeper in the Department of the Middle East at the British Museum, explores a subject that has fascinated him since he was at school – Ghosts.

Irving Finkel will go back to the earliest ancient documentary evidence available to explain what we know about human interaction with ghosts, who they were, where they went and what to do about them – particularly unwanted ghosts. He will also argue that we didn’t become truly human as a species until we started to believe in a spirit world and started burying things with our dead.

His last book, The Ark Before Noah, told the extraordinary story of discovering a tablet amongst the 130,000 in the British Museum’s collection which contained detailed instructions for building the ark. The book became a major news story and was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary in which, following the instructions on the tablet, craftsmen in Kerala, India built the Ark using the materials of the period.

Tickets: £12
Members: £10

A £1.50 ticket levy is included in all stated ticket prices.