Irving Finkel

Who is Irving Finkel?

Irving L. Finkel is a British archaeologist and Assyriologist. He is curently the Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of Middle East in the British Museum, where he specialises in cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay from ancient Mesopotamia.

Finkel earned a PhD in Assyriology from the University of Birmingham with a dissertation on Babylonian exorcistic spells against demons. He then spent three years as a Research Fellow at the University of Chicago Oriental Institute. In 1976 he returned to the UK, and he was appointed as Assistant Keeper in the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum, where he was responsible for curating the musuem's collection of cuneiform tablets.

In addition to his work on cuneiform tablets, Finkel studies the history of board games, and is on the Editorial Board of Board Game Studies.

Finkel has also written a number of works of fiction for adults and children, and founded the Great Diary Project, a project to preserve the diaries of ordinary people.

Finkel is an Honorary Member of the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity of the University of Birmingham and a Council Member of the Anglo-Israel Archaeology Society.