James Kinnier Wilson is a British Assyriologist, was Eric Yarrow Lecturer, from 1955 until 1989, and is Emeritus Fellow, Wolfson College, Cambridge

Wolfson College, Cambridge

Wolfson College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Wolfson is one of a small number of Cambridge colleges which admit only students over the age of 21. The majority of students at the college are postgraduates, with around 15% studying undergraduate...

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Life

The youngest son of the neurologist Samuel Alexander Kinnier Wilson

Samuel Alexander Kinnier Wilson

Samuel Alexander Kinnier Wilson was a British neurologist who was the first to describe Wilson's disease.-Biography:...

, he has combined a skill in reconstructing Mesopotamian legends and epics with an enduring interest in the study of the organic and mental diseases of ancient Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

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University career

• 1946: Admitted to Exeter College, Oxford
  Exeter College, Oxford
  Exeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth oldest college of the University. The main entrance is on the east side of Turl Street...
  
  
• 1949: BA (Oxon), in (Classical) Hebrew and Assyriology. 1952, MA
• 1950: Appointed Lecturer in Assyriology, Durham University
  Durham University
  The University of Durham, commonly known as Durham University, is a university in Durham, England. It was founded by Act of Parliament in 1832 and granted a Royal Charter in 1837...
  
  
• 1951-52: Research year at The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
  University of Chicago
  The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
  
  
• 1953-55: Lecturer and (one year) Asst. Prof., University College, Toronto
• 1955-89: Appointed Eric Yarrow Lecturer in Assyriology, University of Cambridge
• 1965-67: Chairman, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Cambridge

Publications

• The Nimrud Wine Lists: A study of men and administration at the Assyrian capital in the Eighth Century BC (The British School of Archaeology in Iraq, London, 1972)
• Indo-Sumerian: A new approach to the problems of the Indus Script (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1974)
• The Rebel Lands: An investigation into the Origins of Early Mesopotamian Mythology (Cambridge University Press, 1979)
• The Legend of Etana: A new edition (Aris and Phillips, Warminster, 1985)
• Studia Etanaica: new texts and discussions, Alter Orient und Altes Testament, Band 338 (Ugarit-Verlag, Münster, 2007)

Selected chapters and articles

• “An Introduction to Babylonian Psychiatry”, The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Assyriological Studies, No. 16, Chicago, pp. 289–298, 1965
• “Organic diseases of Ancient Mesopotamia”, and “Mental diseases of Ancient Mesopotamia”, in D Brothwell and A T Sandison, eds., Diseases in Antiquity: a Survey of the Diseases, injuries and Surgery of Early Populations, (Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois), Chaps. 15 and 56, 1967
• “Medicine in the Land and the Times of the Old Testament”, in Studies-in the period of David and Solomon and other Essays, ed. Tomo Ishida (Yamakawa-Shuppansha, Tokyo), pp. 339–365, 1982
• “The ‘Seven Cities’ of the Indus Script: a Restatement”, South Asian Studies, 12, pp. 99–104, 1996
• “'On the Ud-shu-bala [Weather change] at Ur towards the End of the Third Millennium BC”, Iraq LXVII/2, pp. 47–60, 2005
• “On Stroke and Facial Palsy in Babylonian Texts” (with E. H. Reynolds), in Disease in Babylonia. ed. I.L. Finkel and M.J. Geller (Brill, Leiden), pp. 67–99, 2007