Kinnier Wilson was born in Marylebone, London on 27 November 1921.^[3] The youngest son of the neurologist Samuel Alexander Kinnier Wilson,^[4] he 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.

Kinnier Wilson lived in Cambridge.^[5] He last published works in 2016.^[6]

The Ancient India and Iran Trust held a 100th birthday celebration for Wilson on 26 November 2021.^[7] He died on 22 December 2022, at the age of 101.^[8][9]

• 1946: Admitted to Christ Church, Oxford
• 1949: BA (Oxon), in (Classical) Hebrew and Assyriology. 1952, MA
• 1950: Appointed Lecturer in Assyriology, Durham University
• 1951–52: Research year at The Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
• 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

• 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)
• James Kinnier Wilson, ed. (2007). The Wisdom and the Beauty: A Selection of Short Passages from the Qur'an. Shepheard-Walwyn. ISBN 978-0-85683-247-5.
• Towards Novaluation: God's Work and Ours at the End of the Age (Janus Publishing Company, 2010)

• "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

• Narrator in the short film, "The Poor Man of Nippur — World's first film in Babylonian" produced by the University of Cambridge Department of Archaeology (2018)^[10]