The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History
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, inscribed 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 this captivating new book, Assyriologist 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.
In this talk Selena will introduce the world of the library and why we should care about it. Mesopotamia is a place both strange and strangely familiar: home to epic poetry, professional exorcists, and diviners who saw the future in the entrails of dead sheep. 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.
Registration is for in person attendance only. This lecture will stream live exclusively for ISAC Members and will be posted to ISAC YouTube channel in the future. If you are a Member, you will receive a Member Update email with the livestream link or you can email Brad at blenz@uchicago.edu. If you would like to join ISAC or renew your membership, please click here.
