Summary of Irving Finkel's The First Ghosts

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The earliest known evidence of the belief in ghosts is from the third millennium bc, when a clay tablet was found that contained the word ghost. However, we must suspect ghostly presences that existed much earlier than this.

#2 The first examples of simple inhumation, the deliberate creation of a space in which to deposit and cover a corpse, are only evident after ~120,000 BP. Down to ~60,000–50,000 BP, a good number of early Homo sapiens burials are known in the Middle East and Europe that pre-date the known Neanderthal burials of the same geographical areas.

#3 The first burial of flowers at Shanidar Cave, Iraq, was publicized in 1971. However, the excavators later found that the flowers were actually clumps of pollen grains. The first burial of flowers was actually done by Neanderthals.

#4 There are three strands of human belief that are implied by burial with goods: something survives of a human being after death, that something escapes the grasp of the corpse and goes somewhere, and that something, if it goes somewhere, can reasonably be expected to be able to come back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Aug 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822583009

IRB Media

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Insights on Irving Finkel's The First Ghosts

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The earliest known evidence of the belief in ghosts is from the third millennium bc, when a clay tablet was found that contained the word ghost. However, we must suspect ghostly presences that existed much earlier than this.

#2

The first examples of simple inhumation, the deliberate creation of a space in which to deposit and cover a corpse, are only evident after ~120,000 BP. Down to ~60,000–50,000 BP, a good number of early Homo sapiens burials are known in the Middle East and Europe that pre-date the known Neanderthal burials of the same geographical areas.

#3

The first burial of flowers at Shanidar Cave, Iraq, was publicized in 1971. However, the excavators later found that the flowers were actually clumps of pollen grains. The first burial of flowers was actually done by Neanderthals.

#4

There are three strands of human belief that are implied by burial with goods: something survives of a human being after death, that something escapes the grasp of the corpse and goes somewhere, and that something, if it goes somewhere, can reasonably be expected to be able to come back.

#5

The second phase is when the simplicity of that belief is exposed to and overlayed by religious, philosophical, or scientific thinking. This complex of overlay imposed questions, scepticism, outrage, and ridicule, eventually reducing the topic to private and chiefly unarticulated belief.

#6

The Assyrians, like the Elamites, believed that disturbing a body in its grave imposed eternal trouble on the individual’s ghost even long after death. The Babylonians and Medes, who conquered Nineveh in 612 bc, mutilated and cut down the statues of the dead Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal.

#7

The sculpture, discovered in the Central Building at Nimrud, depicts the earlier Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II. The king’s figure has been substantially and pointedly defaced to powerlessness: his severed right hand, his plucked-out eyes, ears, nose and mouth, and his chopped beard.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

The first ghosts in history were the spirits of the