The World’s First Film in Babylonian, Made at Cambridge: The Poor Man of Nippur
Assyriology students at the University of Cambridge helped create The Poor Man of Nippur—widely described as the world’s first film performed in the ancient Babylonian language. Released open-access on YouTube, the project was led by Cambridge Assyriology and brings a famous Mesopotamian comic folktale back to life in its original tongue.
The film is based on The Tale of the Poor Man of Nippur, a classic Akkadian/Babylonian story preserved on a clay tablet discovered at Sultantepe in south-east Türkiye (near Şanlıurfa). Using that ancient source as their script, the Cambridge team staged the story in Babylonian, turning a piece of cuneiform literature into a surprisingly watchable—and genuinely fascinating—short film.