57. How History Was Made: Voices from Ancient Mesopotamia

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11:30 - 12:30

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Thu, 26 June

57. How History Was Made: Voices from Ancient Mesopotamia

Forum

Moudhy Al-Rashid

Rebecca Wragg Sykes

Selena Wisnom

Around five thousand years ago, in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, people began writing for the first time – recording not only administrative details and laws, but mathematics, medicinal advice and the everyday moments that make us human.
Join historian Dr. Moudhy Al-Rashid and Assyriologist Dr. Selena Wisnom in a captivating conversation with Dr. Rebecca Wragg Sykes, to hear how ancient cuneiform tablets from more than two millennia of Mesopotamian cultures reveal intimate stories of worlds both distant and deeply relatable. Based on two remarkable collections – the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal’s legendary library, and around a 200 years older, the priestess Ennigaldi-Nanna’s “museum” – remarkable glimpse into the struggles and triumphs of daily life emerge from recipes for beer, lullabies, legal cases and exorcisms, alongside sophisticated mathematics, astronomy, literature and even mythology that influenced the Bible. These extraordinary fragments of text connect us across millennia, offering a glimpse into the origins of written civilization and history itself.