Cuneiform (Radio Edit)

You're Dead to Me

BBC

Comedy, History

4.7 • 10.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Greg Jenner is joined in ancient Mesopotamia by Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid and comedian Phil Wang to learn about the history of cuneiform, the oldest writing system in the world.

In the 19th Century, European scholars began to translate inscriptions found on ruins and clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia - an area of the world between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that encompasses modern Iraq, as well as parts of Syria, Iran, Turkey and Kuwait. The script they deciphered became known as cuneiform, and this distinctive wedge-shaped writing system is perhaps the oldest in the world. The earliest cuneiform tablet is in fact over 5,000 years old.

These clay tablets reveal much about the daily life of people in this part of the ancient world, recording everything from the amounts of beer sold by brewers and the best way to ask the gods for advice, to squabbles between husbands and wives and even the lullabies used to get babies to sleep. The first recorded epic poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is also preserved thanks to cuneiform. This episode traces the history of cuneiform, exploring how this script worked, who used it and what they used it for, what it tells us about the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia, and how it was finally deciphered.

This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.

Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Hannah Cusworth and Matt Ryan Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before this BBC podcast kicks off, I'd like to tell you about some others you might enjoy.
0:05.1	My name's Will Wilkin and I Commission Music Podcast for the BBC.
0:08.7	It's a really cool job, but every day we get to tell the incredible stories behind songs,
0:13.5	moments and movements, stories of struggle and success, rises and falls, the funny, the ridiculous.
0:19.1	And the BBC's position, at the heart of British music
0:21.7	means we can tell those stories like no one else.
0:24.5	We were, are and always will be right there at the centre of the narrative.
0:28.6	So whether you want an insightful take on music right now
0:31.3	or a nostalgic deep dive into some of the most famous and infamous moments in music,
0:36.1	check out the music podcasts on BBC Sounds.
0:40.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.
0:45.2	Hello and welcome to Yodentembe, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is
0:50.8	Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we're bouncing back to the Bronze Age with our stylises and clay tablets to learn all about the first ever writing system or script called Cuniform.
1:03.3	And to help us decipher the ancient story, we have two very special guests.
1:07.5	In History Corner, she's an honorary fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. She's
1:11.8	an Assyriologist who researches and teaches on the history of Mesopotamia, Kenea Form, and the Acadian
1:16.7	language. She has a wonderful brand new book that I loved, called Between Two Rivers, Ancient
1:21.2	Mesopotamia and the Birth of History. I highly recommend it. And you will remember her from our
1:25.4	episode on the Ancient Babylonians. It's Dr. Moody Al Rashid. Welcome, Moody.
1:29.3	Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
1:31.0	Delighted to have you back.
1:32.4	And in Comedy Corner, he's a fantastic comedian, actor and author.
	...

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