Why I used sheep entrails to predict the Trump era
Predicting Donald Trump’s presidency via sheep entrails must rank among the most unusual exercises in academic outreach ever undertaken. But it is just one way Dr Selena Wisnom has brought her Assyrian research to the wider world.
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"Wisnom argues that reading the literature is not enough: "There are all kinds of things you can understand better if you try it than if you just read about it,' she says – an assertion that any teacher of ovine anatomy would second. She chose political prediction because in Assyria divination was a vital political tool. 'They would ask things like, "Is there going to be a rebellion in the south? Is the chief eunuch going to take the throne?"
Selena Wisnom walks the shelves of King Ashurbanipal’s library, revealing what the books tell us about the ideas circulating in 7th-century BC Mesopotamia.
Selena Wisnom walks the shelves of King Ashurbanipal’s library, revealing what the books tell us about the ideas circulating in 7th-century BC Mesopotamia.
Dr Selena Wisnom
