Lecturer in the Heritage of the Middle East @UniofLeicester. Researching ancient Mesopotamia. Playwright, poet, and Babylonian liver diviner.
Oxford, England
Joined April 2013
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I'm pleased to announce the launch of my new website! If you'd like to see what events I have lined up for the next few months or easily access my past projects and media appearances, please visit: selenawisnom.com
Wolfson asked me for some of my favourite history book recommendations...
Every historian has a shelf of favourites. Discover the books that have inspired @lswisnom, from a biography of Rome's most extraordinary woman to the Middle Ages' answer to self-help.
Browse her selection on our @bookshop_org_UK page ⬇️📚
uk.bookshop.org/lists/selena…
📕 'Gilgamesh' by Sophus Helle
📕 'The Poison King' by Adrienne Mayor
📕 'Agrippina' by Emma Southon
📕 'Alaric the Goth' by Douglas Boin
📕 'Persian Fire' by Tom Holland
📕 'Self Help from the Middle Ages' by Peter Jones
📕 'The Mesopotamian Riddle' by Joshua Hammer
On In Our Time today talking about the goddess Ishtar - the one who carries you on her hip like a nurse and makes heads roll like ripe apples...
bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0…
@uniofleicester @BBCInOurTime
The Festival of the Humanities at IWM Vienna was an intellectual feast – a whole week of discussions on everything from cybersecurity to theory of mind!
You can watch me talking about Mesopotamia and the making of history: youtube.com/watch?v=z5MJ1uBc…
Thrilled to be shortlisted for the Wolfson history prize! Writing accessibly about history has always mattered to me, and it's an honour for Mesopotamia to be recognised in this way. I hope it gets more people into the subject. Congrats to all the other authors too!
We're thrilled to announce the 2026 #WolfsonHistoryPrize shortlist, showcasing six exceptional books that explore how societies navigate periods of seismic change.
📕'The Boundless Deep: Young Tennyson, Science and the Crisis of Belief' by Richard Holmes (@wmcollinsbooks)
📕 'Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction' by Sadiah Qureshi (@AllenLaneBooks)
📕 'Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants’ War' by Lyndal Roper (@BasicBooksUK)
📕'Liverpool: A Story of Britain' by @samwetherell (@HoZ_Books)
📕'The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History' by @lswisnom (@AllenLaneBooks)
📕'Silence of the Gods: The Untold History of Europe's Last Pagan Peoples' by @drfrancisyoung (@cambridgeup)
Congratulations to all the authors! 👏📚
wolfsonhistoryprize.org.uk/p…
I’ve been filming with Woodcut media contributing to an exciting project for the autumn - stay tuned for details!
My take on the Amarna letters featured in National Geographic - thank you for the mention and the headline @candidamoss! To find out more:
nationalgeographic.com/newsl…
Selena Wisnom retweeted
My latest for @NatGeo Stones and Bones newsletter is on the Amarna letters nationalgeographic.com/histo… @news_ub
My poem ‘Cartonnage’ has been published in the June issue of Bad Lilies magazine: badlilies.uk/selena-wisnom
Do check out the issue - there is so much beautiful work here!
badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-fo…
Thanks to @BadLilies !
So the livers were right again. Just saying
theguardian.com/politics/202…
Selena Wisnom retweeted
My review of Selena Wisnom’s The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia & the Making of the Modern World.
If you have time to read just one history book this summer, then make it this one, because, with all the firsts achieved by ancient Mesopotamia, there really isn’t much point in picking up the story from a later point.
The OG of Civs:
This was one of my favourite podcasts to be on - check out Classical Wisdom Speaks, where I talk about the lessons Mesopotamia has for the modern world
This month’s Podcast with Professors is with Assyriologist @LSWisnom of @uniofleicester & author of The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of the Modern World to explore the remarkable history of ancient Mesopotamia...
Full podcast on our site!
To learn cuneiform is to be initiated into the secrets of the universe - thanks to the Hay-goers who came to my workshop and took their first scribal steps!
A thousand people came to my talk at Hay Festival yesterday and I was signing books for 40 minutes afterwards the queue was so long 😮
Thanks to everyone who came and I look forward to teaching more people cuneiform this afternoon!
Finally got round to reading my friend @OskarCoxJensen’s debut novel and it did not disappoint. A rollicking murder mystery with a delightful charm - funny, entertaining, and highly recommended!
Thrilled to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and looking forward to getting involved! @RoyalHistSoc
royalhistsoc.org/society-ele…
Marduk visits his ziggurat in Oxford (or: Jupiter visible over the Said Business School) @OxfordSBS @UniofOxford
