Cuneiform Video: The secret to deciphering the Cuneiform ancient language | Irving Finkel and Lex Fridman — E8 Intelligence Research

**Focused discovery: the tablet in the Finkel–Fridman conversation** The tablet discussed by Irving Finkel and Lex Fridman is almost certainly **YBC 7289** (Yale Babylonian Collection), the famous Old Babylonian (c. 1800–1600 BCE) round school tablet showing a square with its two diagonals. It is the most frequently filmed cuneiform tablet in popular media, and Finkel — keeper of the British Museum's cuneiform collection — has discussed it repeatedly. However, I must be honest: the video itself does not, on the record, cite a museum number, and the tablet is shown or described only in general terms. The identification is therefore inferred from content, not confirmed by the video's own labelling. **What the tablet records.** YBC 7289 gives a numerical value for the diagonal of a square with side 30. The scribe writes: - Side: **30** (i.e. 30/60 = 0.5) - Diagonal: **1;24,51,10** in sexagesimal — that is 1 + 24/60 + 51/60² + 10/60³ = **1.41421296…** - A second number, **42;25,35** (= Author: Andrew Stewart Caldin, Independent Researcher, UK. Part of the E8 Intelligence Research series. Platform: e8intelligence.com