First, he notes that the Neolithic archaeological site at Göbekli Tepe, best known for its remarkable monolithic architecture bearing extensive artwork (noted here and here), has produced a small stone object that has the look of an administrative seal. The object has three marks on it that sure look like pictographic writing, possibly even phonetic writing. Dr. Finkel thinks that such a complex society would have needed at least pictographic writing for trade and administration and this artifact shows that they had it. Presumably they used it more extensively on perishable materials such as leaves.
Not noted in the clip, but similar decorated stone objects has been found at other Neolithic sites. An example from Jerf al-Ahmar in Syria is shown here. French scientists have already suggested a connection with pictographic writing. A cautious appraisal of the implications of such objects is in this open-access article. Note especially Fig. 3A‒D.
Finkel knows much more about early writing systems than I do, but I know enough to say that his proposal has some merit. Neolithic civilizations may well have already been working on pictographic writing systems in 9000 BCE. The earliest proto-cuneiform writing is from the late 3000s BCE, nearly six millenia later.
Pair that with this year's proposal that alphabetic writing was already underway in the third millennium BCE.
For another 2025 PaleoJudaica post on an intriging story about Neolithic archaeology, see here.
Second—and here Finkel speaks directly out of his expertise—he has an arresting take on Ashurbanipal's famed cuneiform library in the ruins of Nineveh, excavated in the nineteenth century. The Library of Ashurbanipal, some 30,000 tablets or so, is a major source for the Epic of Gilgamesh and other cuneiform literature. PaleoJudaica has posted on it here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Finkel's proposal, which I have not heard before, is that the Babylonian conquerers and their allies must have looted the library before they destroyed it. It would have contain vast amounts of important information in their own language which they would have wanted to keep. The huge "library" that was excavated consists only of the duplicates and the broken pieces that the Babylonians didn't bother carting off. If he's right—and as a curator of the cuneiform collection of the British Museum, where those tablets are housed, his opinion has credibility—the loss of the bulk of the original library of Ashurbanipal is a tragedy comparable to the loss of the Library of Alexandria.
Still, we are unimaginably fortune to have what we do have of it.
PaleoJudaica has noted Dr. Finkel in connection with a British Museum exhibition on Babylon here; his work on the Mesopotamian Noah's Ark story here, here, here, and here; his work on some new Cyrus Cylinder fragments here and here; an interview with him here; his comments on the completion of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary here; his work on the Babylonian World Map here; and a recent book he co-authored on Babylonian Chronographic Texts from the Hellenistic Period here.
If you're wondering, no, none of this has anything to do with Christmas. Except perhaps that Dr. Finkel does look a lot like Santa Claus.
UPDATE (28 December): Over at the Trowel and Pen Blog, archaeologist Jens Notroff—who specializes in the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods, who has acted as a staff member at the Göbekli Tepe excavation, and who has published on the site—has responded to Finkel's claims in the Fridman interview: Hidden in plain sight: Did archaeologists really overlook evidence for early writing at Göbekli Tepe?! It's brief, so read it all.
Mr. Notroff makes three points. First, he objects to Finkel's "subtle passive-agressive" tone toward archaeologists. Fair point. I think he was speaking tongue in cheek, but he could have skipped those opening comments.
Second, the artifact is not unique. It comes in an archaeological context of similar objects and iconography found at the site and elsewhere. Agreed. For example, I linked to a photo of the Jerf el Ahmar plaquette above.
Third, there is already a specialist literature on these objects and their iconography. Again, agreed. I cited a 2025 peer-reviewed article above as an example.
So is it proto-writing? Notroff concludes:
So, is it now writing or not? I’d still be hesitant, to be honest. These symbols are part of a communication system, I’m totally on board here. But in my humble opinion we’re not seeing phonetic values assigned to specific symbols representing spoken language here yet.That doesn't sound far off from what Finkel (and I) said. It looks like some kind of pictographic communication. Whether it was "proto-writing," is certainly up for discussion. It could be phonetic, but need not be. We would need to know something about the language spoken by the Göbekli Tepeians to evaluate that.
If it is ever firmly established that they used (proto-)writing, that will only be through collaboration between experts on early writing systems like Dr. Finkel and specialist archaeologists like Mr. Notroff. I am glad that the latter weighed in on the subject.
I have not yet found any responses by other Assyriologists to Finkel's comments about Ashubanipal's Library.
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