Phil Wang

speaker

2,201 appearances 10 recordings 6 series first heard Mar 2025 last heard 3 Jul

Phil Wang’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 3.

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You're Dead to Me · Cuneiform: the world’s first writing system · 21 Mar 2025 podcast

And was this system available to people outside of the kings? So regular people could do this as well?

Probably like, this place sucks. It's really hot. It's really hot. We've got a river. That's pretty good, I guess. What's it like over there? This place sucks too, actually. It's really hot. I have to go to this stupid scribe every time I want to send a letter to someone. So you think it's just like people just complaining? It must have been, yeah. The arrogance, though.

I don't think there's a lot to complain about back then.

I'm sorry, but you mentioned a few times now the word rations. What do you mean by that in this context? What were rations?

I was going to ask, are these good reads? Are they real tablet turners? LAUGHTER

What were people writing about? I mean, there's the letters, presumably, and also, all of it, literature and records as well.

Almost, almost. We don't know how it ends. And then Gilgamesh did what, did what. It's like Game of Thrones, he's still not finished it.

Things like, how are you? Good trip? You get in all right? No. That must have been something. How was the journey? Must have been something like that. How was the journey? And then he's running back, how are the kids? How's the barley? I mean, he must have been there for a while if there was time for them to have a clay tablet exchange, right?

I feel like there's more drama in these tablets, Moody.

Wow. So she's invoicing him as well. I know. On top of all that.

It's not going well, that relationship, is it? God, she's making it sound like it's his fault the entire city is falling apart. I feel like it's a little dramatic. Because of you, the whole city is starving. But it's amazing. You never think of these old forms of writing being able to convey such emotion or such nuance or anger even.

I've always thought of them as very specific numbers, dates, names. Not like feelings, not emotions.

Do we have his replies? I'm invested now. I see why you got into this. New tablet, who dis?

Yeah. Yeah, triangle stands for cat.

Triangle stands for dog.

So there were schools and kids were taught uniform at school?

They do look like sourdough, like I said.

Is there a modern language that is related to Akkadian in any way?

Yeah.

You have to think about the average quality of life at the time and how much of an upgrade that would have been, even just for two months. I would have considered it. Yeah? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, depending on what age I was. If I was 40... I was already knocking on death's door, to be honest. So, you know, I'd take that. Two months in heaven and then death. Yeah, I'll take that.

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