The Library of Ancient Wisdom
Mesopotamia and the Making of HistorySelect a format:
Pre-order:
Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
When a team of Victorian archaeologists began to dig into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest stores of knowledge ever seen: a library. As they excavated, and deciphered the library’s forgotten languages, they discovered that it had belonged to Ashurbanipal, a scholar king and conqueror who had ruled the kingdom of Assyria over two thousand years before.
After Ashurbanipal’s death, vengeful rivals burned his carefully curated library to the ground, and eventually the grass grew over it. Yet the library’s knowledge survived, carved on clay tablets which were accidentally, miraculously preserved, baked into longevity by the flames.
Assyriologist Selena Wisnom has spent years studying the tablets and is our expert, lively guide through the library stacks. These rich, strange texts reveal the extraordinary and little-known influence of an ancient society on our modern world: our understanding of the constellations, the aqueducts, the invention of medical diagnosis, the sixty-minute hour and much more is owed to the scholars of the ancient Middle East.
Beyond the scholars, the library also allows us to discover the everyday lives of the Assyrians in extraordinary detail, with letters recording their concerns about job security, disputes with in-laws, jealous rivalries, profound friendships and questions about the meaning of life. Here a long silent civilization can speak across thousands of years with its own voice, uncovering again the world beneath the hill.
© Selena Wisnom 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
When a team of Victorian archaeologists began to dig into a grassy hill in Iraq, they chanced upon one of the oldest stores of knowledge ever seen: a library. As they excavated, and deciphered the library’s forgotten languages, they discovered that it had belonged to Ashurbanipal, a scholar king and conqueror who had ruled the kingdom of Assyria over two thousand years before.
After Ashurbanipal’s death, vengeful rivals burned his carefully curated library to the ground, and eventually the grass grew over it. Yet the library’s knowledge survived, carved on clay tablets which were accidentally, miraculously preserved, baked into longevity by the flames.
Assyriologist Selena Wisnom has spent years studying the tablets and is our expert, lively guide through the library stacks. These rich, strange texts reveal the extraordinary and little-known influence of an ancient society on our modern world: our understanding of the constellations, the aqueducts, the invention of medical diagnosis, the sixty-minute hour and much more is owed to the scholars of the ancient Middle East.
Beyond the scholars, the library also allows us to discover the everyday lives of the Assyrians in extraordinary detail, with letters recording their concerns about job security, disputes with in-laws, jealous rivalries, profound friendships and questions about the meaning of life. Here a long silent civilization can speak across thousands of years with its own voice, uncovering again the world beneath the hill.
© Selena Wisnom 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
Reviews
This thought-provoking and well-written book reveals how Ashurbanipal’s library was used in its heyday by ancient scholars with expertise in religion, magic, witchcraft, astrology, literature, and medicine. Wisnom shows how these Assyrian thinkers perceived their world and made decisions. We are reminded that they shared similar concerns to our own and that their views were not unsophisticated or cynical. Their conclusions and explanations, though different from ours, were well thought out
Amanda H. Podany, author of Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East