The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies

by Irving Finkel

As we have seen, ghosts – the spirits of the dead – have walked by our side since the beginning of our time. They are there in our first ancient writings, and can be suspected, or glimpsed, far earlier than that; while the human ideas, brought out of the ground dressed in cuneiform to have life breathed into them, reflect a belief system that will be intelligible, accessible and even familiar to any modern reader who has interest in the subject. Our story has brought us from the shady beginnings to the edge of the classical world, the terrain of the three great monotheistic religions, and the beginning of successive new ages of ideas, theories and philosophies. Ghosts beyond Mesopotamia known to the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Romans can claim their counterparts ever after right across the span of the world; it is a simple matter to demonstrate the universal presence of ghosts in people’s minds and lives, dreams and writings.