FIVE thousand two hundred years ago in Mesopotamia, for the very first time, humans started to write and record history on clay tablets. The birth of the first written language, cuneiform, and its wedge-shaped script, by the Sumerians was going to have revolutionary consequences. From this point forth, humanity had the power to transmit its ideas in greater detail to the next generations. And to this very day we can feel the tremors of this truly pioneering development. Irving Finkel's historic book The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood echoes with the fragments of that past.

Finkel is curator of the British Museum and is in charge of the preservation of more than 100,000 clay tablets. Being an expert in his field, he successfully traces and hypothesises the origin, development, transmission, extinction and rediscovery of the cuneiform. Finkel explains that the heyday of cuneiform founders, the Sumerians, might have long passed, but we can still feel its presence in the modern world. For example Finkel writes, 'Every thinking child ... has at one time or another asked why minutes and hours are divided into sixtieths ... (and) circles divided into three hundred and sixtieths. The reason is the Mesopotamian preference for sexagesimal (based on 60) mathematics, which developed with the dawn of writing.' The discussion on cuneiform might become slightly heavy for the reader, but it is only limited to chapter two and three. What is written subsequently holds greater significance.

The rest of the book revolves around a small clay tablet called the Ark Tablet that Finkel discovered in 2009. This tablet, dating from about 1900-1700 BCE, precedes all Abrahamic religions and reveals a new interpretation of the Great Flood. Using the 60 lines of the tablet as his backbone, Finkel provides a thought-provoking and challenging assessment that literally shakes some foundations of Abrahamic beliefs.

Readers might be astonished to discover that the Mesopotamians had their own stories about the Great Flood. During the 19th century, numerous tablets were dug out in Mesopotamia (the most famous being the story of Epic of Gilgamesh) that narrated stories similar to the one in the Book of Genesis about Prophet Noah and the Great Flood.

Finkel argues that in these Mesopotamian stories, there is a great diversity of gods and heroes. But the common theme running through them is that the gods are unhappy with humans because they are making too much noise on earth, depriving the gods of their sleep. To reinforce the balance in the cosmos the gods ordain a Great Flood to wipe out the entire human species.

In the Ark Tablet, the aiding god is the clever and benevolent Enki and the hero is the confused Atrahasis. Enki first gives Atrahasis a prophetic dream depicting the great deluge. Atrahasis then prays to Enki for the explanation to the worrisome dream: `Teach me the meaning (of the dream)...

that I may look out for its conclusion.Enki responds in the Ark Tablet and orders Atrahasis to construct a boat that can withstand the tides of the coming deluge. Finkel quotes his translation from the Ark Tablet: `Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall! Atrahasis, pay heed to my advice, That you may live forever! Destroy your house, build a boat; Spurn property and save life! Draw out the boat that you will make On a circular plan; Let her length and breadth be equal ...

Analysing these first eight lines, Finkel argues that Atrahasis destroyed his reed house, and used its material for the foundations of his boat. This boat was made of reed and circular in shape. Finkel provides evidence that until few decades ago, in modern day Iraq some communities made reed houses and used circular boats called coracles. For these reasons, in Finkel`s assessment, this early tale of the Great Flood was written by the locals who were accustomed to that sort of environment. Clearly, this is a very dif ferent kind of boat from Noah`s boat that we have frequently seen in paintings, stories, movies or cartoons. Finkel adds that the purpose of Atrahasis`s boat was not to travel in a particular direction but to remain afloat atop the coming deluge. For this purpose, a coracle design was more practical than a rectangular boat.

In the rest of the Ark Tablet, Enki clearly mentions size and the amount of resources needed for the construction of this megaproject. Remember that this boat wouldnot just be harbouring Atrahasis and his family but also other species. Finkel calculates that Atrahasis`s coracle had a base area of 3,600 square metres; it was made using 527 kilometres of rope and 241 cubic metres of bitumen for waterproofing.

Interestingly, Finkel notes in his book that Atrahasis`s Ark is not the only story having similarities with narratives in the Hebrew Bible. There is also the story of Legends of Sargon comparable to that of Prophet Moses in the Hebrew Bible. Finkel concludes that`(t)he comparison illustrates strong connections between the traditions in topic and ideas, and establishes that the Hebrew text reflects an antecedent version or versions of the Flood Story in cuneiform ... while not being identical.

And then in the chapter titled the `Judean Experience`, Finkel tries to connect the missing dots and constructs the historical bridges through which the ancient Mesopotamian legends entered or influenced the Hebrew Bible.

Using the Hebrew bible and the recorded material on Babylonian clay tablets as his reference, Finkel narrates that in 597 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon conquered Jerusalem and forced its King Jehoiachin and citizens into exile. These Judaeans were forced to settle in Nebuchadnezzar`s marvellous capital, Babylon. Some of these Judaeans were treated well, and were encouraged to learn cuneiform at the great libraries of Babylon.

Here the two cultures mingled. Babylonians took a liking to the monotheistic God and introduced his essence in Marduk the supreme god. The Judeans adopted someMesopotamian legends as the `essential function would be to provide a lucid explanation for what happened from the beginning of time and to demonstrate explicitly that the whole historical process from the inception of the world had been the unfolding of a divine plan of which they the chosen people were the central concern.

Finkel argues that these stories which described the beginning of the world and human civilisation were used by exiled, educated and influential Judaeans to create a blended narrative which took the shape of a handbook: the Hebrew Bible.

Though backed by sound academic research, due to the comparative nature of the book, and its attempt to connect the polytheist Mesopotamian legends with monotheist Abrahamic narratives, the content of Finkel`s The Ark Before Noah might seem controversial to some readers. Still, Finkel has done something truly mystical. He has managed to explain how the legends and intellectual ideas of that lesser-known or forgotten past of our ancestors influenced subsequent history and the modern world as we see it today.