World's oldest ghost drawing, depicting a horny old spirit, found on 3,500-year-old Babylonian tablet
The ancient tablet was analyzed by the British Museum's Dr. Irving Finkel
The world’s oldest drawing of a ghost has been discovered on an ancient Babylonian tablet—and, just as in other timeless ghost stories like that 1995 Casper movie, it’s about a spirit whose sadness is alleviated by finding a girlfriend.
The Guardian tells us that the Babylonian clay tablet in question has been hanging out in the British Museum’s vast stores of ill-gotten imperial plunder. Its exact significance went overlooked until the ghost drawing was noticed by the Museum’s Middle Eastern department curator and cuneiform expert, Dr. Irving Finkel.
The tablet shows “a lonely bearded spirit being led into the afterlife and eternal bliss by a lover” and comes from a 3,500-year-old Babylonian “exorcist’s guide to getting rid of unwanted ghosts by addressing the particular malaise that brought them back to the world of the living.”
Though it’s hard to make out without the overlaid outline, the tablet’s ghost is depicted with his wrists bound, being led by a woman. The tablet includes text which “details a ritual that would dispatch [the ghost] happily to the underworld.”