Selena Wisnom, "The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of the Modern World" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

4 snips

Mar 13, 2025

In this engaging discussion, Selena Wisnom, an Assyriologist and lecturer at the University of Leicester, unearths the wonders of ancient Mesopotamian libraries. She reveals how the burning of Ashurbanipal's library preserved vital knowledge, showcasing a culture rich in mathematics, astronomy, and literature. Wisnom dives into Mesopotamian mythology, focusing on the complexities of goddess Ishtar, and contrasts ancient magic practices with modern interpretations. Finally, she highlights the human side of ancient scholars and the enduring legacy of Babylonian literature.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Gods and City Patronage

Mesopotamian religion involved a pantheon of gods with specific roles and city patronage.
Gods' influence grew with their city’s power, like Ashur embodying Assyrian might.

ANECDOTE

Ishtar and Gilgamesh

Goddess Ishtar, of sexuality and war, proposed to Gilgamesh, who rejected her due to her past lovers' fates.
Enraged, she unleashed the Bull of Heaven (Taurus constellation) upon him.

INSIGHT

Magic and Exorcism

Magic in Assyria was a serious, academic pursuit aiming to persuade gods to intervene in human affairs.
Exorcists reconciled people with angry gods through rituals and incantations.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

When a team of Victorian archaeologists dug into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest and greatest stores of knowledge ever seen: the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, seventh century BCE ruler of a huge swathe of the ancient Middle East known as Mesopotamia. After his death, vengeful rivals burned Ashurbanipal’s library to the ground - yet the texts, carved on clay tablets, were baked and preserved by the heat. Buried for millennia, the tablets were written in cuneiform: the first written language in the world.

More than half of human history is written in cuneiform, but only a few hundred people on earth can read it. In The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History (U Chicago Press, 2025), Assyriologist Dr. Selena Wisnom takes us on an immersive tour of this extraordinary library, bringing ancient Mesopotamia and its people to life. Through it, we encounter a world of astonishing richness, complexity and sophistication. Mesopotamia, she shows, was home to advanced mathematics, astronomy and banking, law and literature. This was a culture absorbed and developed by the ancient Greeks, and whose myths were precursors to Bible stories - in short, a culture without which our lives today would be unrecognizable.

The Library of Ancient Wisdom unearths a civilization at once strange and strangely familiar: a land of capricious gods, exorcisms and professional lamenters, whose citizens wrote of jealous rivalries, profound friendships and petty grievances. Through these pages we come face to face with humanity’s first civilization: their startling achievements, their daily life, and their struggle to understand our place in the universe.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices