The Library Of Ancient Wisdom (mesopotamia And The Making Of History)

By (author) Wisnom, Selena
Description:

The Library of Ancient Wisdom ''pieces together a vivid portrait of Mesopotamian life from the shattered remnants of the 30,000 or so tablets in Ashurbanipal''s library... which not only bring kings and queens to life, but also priests, traders and professional lamenters'' - New Scientist

''Fascinating and rich in detail… provides an excellent survey of Mesopotamian literary classics.. and offers snippets of daily life'' - Literary Review


The story of the ancient world’s most spectacular library, and the civilization that created it

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 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.

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.

Review quote:
Fascinating and rich in detail… provides an excellent survey of Mesopotamian literary classics, including the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the ways in which they influenced later cultures and texts, such as the Iliad and the Odyssey… she also offers snippets of daily life, including an account of Ashurbanipal''s father, Esarhaddon, getting into a panic because a mongoose had run under his chariot (was it a fatal omen?) and the actual agenda of a meeting
Review quote:
Wisnom''s strength lies in taking a walk along the shelves of the library and discovering what the books tell us about the ideas circulating in the court of Nineveh
Review quote:
The Library of Ancient Wisdom pieces together a vivid portrait of Mesopotamian life from the shattered remnants of the 30,000 or so tablets in Ashurbanipal''s library... which not only bring kings and queens to life, but also priests, traders and professional lamenters
Review quote:
A fascinating book about the contents of the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal... An excellent bibliographical essay, useful timelines, maps, and illustrations, and a helpful list of the historical figures who people this story enhance Wisnom’s tour of an astounding collection
Review quote:
A fascinating account of the daily lives lived by people thousands of years ago
Review quote:
Selena Wisnom shows how an ancient library was the motor of the world''s most advanced civilisation. Her book is a great work of revelatory history, but I was also unexpectedly moved by its measured optimism