The Middle East department at the museum has a huge collection of clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions. Dr Finkel’s department researches and decodes the inscriptions, linking the tablets together where possible to provide a linear story. This is where the true revelation about Noah’s Ark came from.
Cuneiform is an ancient system of writing used in the Middle East. The word, Cuneiform, means wedge-shaped and indeed the script comprises wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets.
A clay tablet of some 4,000 years old in the British Museum has revealed that the famed vessel was, in fact, round and not as has been thought and portrayed, rectangular. Not only has the tablet revealed this piece of information but it has also detailed the materials used to build the ark and the precise measurements. The discovery was a chance find made by deciphering the Cuneiform and linking it to other tablets to compile the ancient Babylonian story, the Story of the Flood.
The ark was constructed out of wooden ribs and palm fibre rope with hot bitumen used after construction to render the vessel waterproof. The instructions were given by a Mesopotamian god and the dimensions are translated to be 3,600 square metres, with walls to a height of six metres. This equates to an area around two thirds the size of a modern football field. The sixty lines on the tablet also include the order that the animals must enter, ‘two by two’.
The odds surrounding this discovery were revealed to be even greater when the story of how the tablet came into the possession of the Museum was recounted by Dr. Finkel. A man called Douglas Simmonds came into the museum with a clay tablet which he wanted identified, a normal day at the office for Dr. Finkel. The tablet was a family piece given to the owner by his father as a reward for passing his exams. The tablet had been acquired by Mr Simmonds’ father, Leonard, along with a few other less interesting bits and pieces in the late 1940s after serving with the RAF in the Middle East.
This unique tablet recounts the story of the ark and is far older than the known biblical accounts. Finkel has described the discovery of the tablet as one of the most important human records ever found but in a shocking paradox, is absolute in his belief that the ark never actually existed.
The tablet remains on display at the British Museum where it has been since 2014 on loan from Mr Simmonds.]]>
Russian pickpocketry takes on a different form now in this modern age, and with arguably a far greater reach than merely arms’ length. Russia has a fearsome reputation as home to some of the most deadly and serious cyberhacking groups such as Anonymous International and the Koobface Gang. They are to modern cyber crime what their villainous ancestors were to the pockets and valuables of eighteenth century Russia.
Sometimes hackers are motivated by political ideology and a cause to believe in but Russian hackers simply seem intent on emptying other peoples’ bank accounts, and not a thieves’ coin in sight.
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Still so relevant today in modern conflicts in the Arab state, the RAF is held in great affection by the British people. The UK is awash with a year of events and celebrations to mark the first one hundred years of the RAF.
With an eye watering budget of £8 million, concerts, flypast and tattoos are all planned. A commemorative £2 coin has been struck by the Royal Mint featuring five different designs.
The Ministry of Defence has released an iconic set of pictures to tell the story of the RAF through the decades. Some of the pictures have been colourised by an expert which is a relatively modern technique designed to breathe life into old pictures. The colourised versions convey a depth of feeling and atmosphere that is not present in the black and white originals.]]> 
Remains of the Clotilda[/caption]
All of the slaves were either sold or kept for personal use by Meaher and Foster. After the Civil War in 1865 when he became free, Kossola along with other former slaves founded Africatown in Alabama, where they remained and where Hurston came to interview him in the late twenties.
The author spent a lot of time living in Africatown with Kossola, where the men spoke their own language and kept up their traditional, African customs. She walked alongside Kossola as he cleaned the church and accompanied him on his crabbing trips to the bay. Some of their time was spent in silence, itself speaking volumes about Kossola’s loss of his people and homeland even after so many years.
Her time spent with Kossola moved Zora Hurston hugely and she was profoundly affected by his story. During one of her last visits to his home, she asked to photograph him. Kossola appeared in his best suit but without any shoes. He told Hurston that he wanted to look like he would if he were in Africa as this is where he really wanted to be.
This work was one of her earliest projects following the end of her studies; Hurston studied Anthropology at Barnard College and then Howard University. Hurston was part of the Harlem Renaissance which was an intellectual and social movement within Harlem during the 1920s also sometimes known as, ‘the New Negro Movement’.
Her Biography, ‘Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston’ by Valerie Boyd portrays the effect that the interviews with Kossola had on Hurston quite vividly. Hurston’s work is truly unique because it is the first hand testimony of a man who was there, a living record from a truly shameful period of history.]]> 
