The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies Irving Finkel in conversation with Nayanjot Lahiri

In 1971, Irving Finkel was told a spine-chilling tale of a ghost that his lifelong friend had seen when he was 7 years old. This story left a lasting impression on Finkel, sparking his fascination with ghostly experiences. Although he never encountered a ghost himself, he delved into an ancient ghost hunt, unearthing captivating stories and ideas about ghosts, which he fascinatingly compiled in his book, The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies.
 
During a lively discussion at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2022, British philologist Finkel engaged in a thought-provoking dialogue with historian Nayanjot Lahiri. He highlighted that the book's title and subtitle aim to showcase the timeless and global extent of the belief in ghosts throughout human history.
 
As a scholar working at the British Museum, Finkel's examination of cuneiform tablets from ancient Mesopotamia revealed an increasing number of tablets dating back to about 1800 BC that discussed the subject of ghosts. These tablets, written by exorcists, focused on helping people troubled by ghosts, shedding light on the ancient engagement with ghostly beings.
 
The discussion got more engrossing when Lahiri brought up the Harappan Civilisation and noted that the people of the Indus Valley removed the bodies of their dead from living areas, with some being cremated and others being buried in graves at the edge of settlements. But these traditions were not shared by the early hunter-gatherers in the Gangetic Plains, who buried the dead very close to their homes “with ornaments, and tools and pieces of red ochre.” Lahiri also talked about the fear of the dead rising and mentioned the chalcolithic site of Inamgaon, where most of the adult skeletons had their lower extremities chopped off below the ankle! “...Those who were still living above did not at all relish the possibility of those hidden below deciding to take a walk, if I may say so!” Lahiri quipped.
 
In ancient Mesopotamia, Finkel revealed, ghosts were often viewed with sympathy, and exorcists were called upon to perform rituals to help them return to the underworld. The belief was that ghosts retained their qualities from when they were alive, some being harmless, while others possessed malicious intentions. Amulets were used to defend against menacing spirits, with unintelligible words on amulets making ghosts nervous.
 
The very idea of amulets being used may remind one of the charms and objects that people utilise across traditions in order to protect themselves against ghostly entities, we can think of the symbols, rings, bracelets, and objects that many use in India to ward off evil spirits.  More similarities were drawn when Finkel noted that the basic message, universally, is that “...when people pass away…we don’t see them again but when they do come back, it’s because they are unhappy.” To this, Lahiri said that in North India, the most “dreaded of the spirits is what is called a chudail,” a woman who has left the world with unsatisfied desires. She also added that terms like bhoot and pret have been mentioned in some of the old Indian texts.
 
As the captivating conversation drew to its end, Finkel said that in ancient Mesopotamia, society was not divided between people who believed in ghosts and those who didn’t. “That dichotomy did not exist…people did not either believe or disbelieve in ghosts…they took them for granted, they were part of real life!”