Myths From Mesopotamia

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The ancient civilization of Mesopotamia thrived between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates over 4,000 years ago. The myths collected here, originally written in cuneiform on clay tablets, include parallels with the biblical stories of the Creation and the Flood, and the famous Epic of Gilgamesh, the tale of a man of great strength, whose heroic quest for immortality is dashed through one moment of weakness. Recent developments in Akkadian grammar and lexicography mean that this new translation, complete with notes, a glossary of deities, place-names, and key terms, and illustrations of the mythical monsters featured in the text, will replace all other versions. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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The stories translated here all of ancient Mesopotamia, and include not only myths about the Creation and stories of the Flood, but also the longest and greatest literary composition, the Epic of Gilgamesh. This is the story of a heroic quest for fame and immortality, pursued by a man of great strength who loses a unique opportunity through a moment's weakness. So much has been discovered in recent years both by way of new tablets and points of grammar and lexicography that these new translations by Stephanie Dalley supersede all previous versions. -- from back cover.

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Publisher Description

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Examines the Mesopotamian influence on Greek mythology in literary works of the epic period, concentrating in particular on journey myths. A major contribution to the understanding of the colourful myths involved.

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This book includes two captivating manuscripts: Mesopotamian Mythology: A Captivating Guide to Ancient Near Eastern Myths Sumerian Mythology: Captivating Myths of Gods, Goddesses, and Legendary Creatures of Ancient Sumer and Their Importance to the Sumerians

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Reproduction of the original.

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Do you know that the Sumerians believed that: The moon was actually a god child conceived unintentionally by the God Enlil and a maid? Or that humans were first created to do the chores on earth for the Gods and Goddesses? The ancient Sumerians lived a difficult life, and this is reflected in their myths. However, also reflected in their stories is their love for justice and the values which they most supported, among them beauty, honor, and truthfulness. Some of the stories included are: How the world, the moon, mankind and animals were created The retelling of the Epic of Gilgamesh: the legend of the very first hero in history Ninurta and the slaying of the demon Asag The Myths of Kur: the Dragon Conqueror Inanna's journey to the underworld And many other amazing tales! Get this book and discover the fascinating world of Sumerian Mythology today!

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Empires rose and fell along the banks of the Tigris & Euphrates, whilst a civilization as yet unsurpassed emerged... Discover Myths, History & More From The World's Most Ancient Civilization! Mesopotamia, the land "between two rivers" was an ancient region located in modern-day Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria, and Turkey. From the founding of Eridu in the sixth millennium BCE to the fall of Babylon in the first, the history of Mesopotamia spans almost 5,000 years. It was not only the earliest but also the greatest civilization in human history. Sumerians, Assyrians, Akkadians, and Babylonians were just some of the associated cultures. For a long time, the only way to understand their history has been through dense academic sources. This is in part due to the huge time frame and the lack of easily understood ancient sources. Such inaccessibility of information means that few know little about it. As such, it is essential to bring their knowledge and history into the light, allowing everyone to benefit from the fascinating insights of the very first human civilization. Inside this book you will discover; Introduction to the Sumerians, Assyrians, Persians & Babylonians. Epics & mythological stories, including the famous Epic of Gilgamesh, The Babylonian Creation Myth, The Enuma Elish & many more. Sargon of Akkad (Saddam Hussein celebrated this great Akkadian emperor with lavish festivities) How Mesopotamia laid foundations for human civilization - technology, laws, education, languages & more. Learn about civilizations such as The Land of Ur (home to Biblical characters) Old Babylon - fascinating insights from one of the most famous ancient cities. Why the introduction of a syllabic writing system was one of the largest contributors to the fall of Mesopotamia. And much, much more... Whether you're an ancient history enthusiast or just a reader looking to add to their knowledge...Inside you will discover a wealth of cultural history, mythology and more from in this book.

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Sumerian history and mythology have been shrouded in mystery for thousands of years. These tales of the world's very first civilization is now being exposed to the light of day, fascinating men and women around the world. The stories of Enlil, Enkidu, and Gilgamesh are finding new audiences, people interested in learning about a world where the people felt and experienced very differently from how we do today. Sumerian mythology was so powerful that some of their gods found their way into different cultures, the most famous example of this being Aphrodite who began life as the Sumerian goddess Inanna. In Sumerian Mythology: Fascinating Sumerian History and Mesopotamian Empire and Myths, you will be exposed to the riveting tales of gods and heroes that formed the canon of the Sumerian religion.Sumerian civilization has become an intrinsic part of how we live today, even if most of us are unaware of it. The way that we measure time, observe the stars, and even plant and grow crops has a lot to do with the advancements made by the Sumerians more than six thousand years ago. And heroes like Gilgamesh have helped define what it means to be a hero today. They were men who became gods, earning their place in immortality in more ways than one. The Sumerians used their stories as a way to instruct others and how they lived and even to help themselves understand their world. Sumerian Mythology: Fascinating Sumerian History and Mesopotamian Empire and Myths, you will learn the formative tales of gods and heroes to help you understand who the Sumerians were and why they were important.Sumerian Mythology: Fascinating Sumerian History and Mesopotamian Empire and Myths explores the tales of gods and heroes in a concise, easy-to-read fashion. These tales of heroes and gods were deeply important to the Mesopotamian people and learning about them is the only way to understand the kind of world they lived in and how it was different from our own. It was a world of birds with the faces of lions, gods with the wings of birds, and seductive goddesses who symbolically married the kings of the various city-states. The Sumerians told many tales of gods like Inanna, An, Ashur, and Enlil, tales that helped the civilizations of Mesopotamia endure for nearly 4000 years. Indeed, European travelers to the Orient in the 18th century discovered that there were still districts where the goddess Inanna (more than five thousand years old then) was still worshipped in secret.The world of the Sumerians was unlike our own. The people at the heart of Sumerian civilization - living in modern-day Iraq, Kuwait, Turkey, and other places - these people were part of a culture so far removed from the way that we think and perceive today as to be almost unrecognizable. Sumerian Mythology: Fascinating Sumerian History and Mesopotamian Empire and Myths gives you the binoculars to view their world. It was a world of great empires: the Akkadian, Hurrian, Assyrian, and Babylonian. It was a world of legendary wealth and beauty. In Sumerian Myth, you will understand this world by gaining a summary of the major historical events and an in-depth exposure to the gods.In Sumerian Mythology: Fascinating Sumerian History and Mesopotamian Empire and Myths, you will learn all there is to know about Sumerian myth and history. You will learn about the Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the Anzu bird, who the major gods and goddesses were, who the important heroes were, and how Sumerian society left a legacy that continues with us today. Poets and historians recorded Mesopotamian tales on cuneiform tablets, but we have made the deciphering work easy for you.

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For much of the last half of the twentieth century, W. G. Lambert devoted much of his research energy and effort to the study of Babylonian texts dealing with Mesopotamian ideas regarding creation, including especially Enuma Elish. This volume, which appears almost exactly 2 years after Lambert’s death, distills a lifetime of learning by the world’s foremost expert on these texts. Lambert provides a full transliteration and translation of the 7 tablets of Enuma Elish, based on the known exemplars, as well as coverage of a number of other texts that bear on, or are thought to bear on, Mesopotamian notions of the origin of the world, mankind, and the gods. New editions of seventeen additional “creation tales” are provided, including “Enmesharra’s Defeat,” “Enki and Ninmah,” “The Slaying of Labbu,” and “The Theogony of Dunnu.” Lambert pays special attention, of course, to the connection of the main epic, Enuma Elish, with the rise and place of Marduk in the Babylonian pantheon. He traces the development of this deity’s origin and rise to prominence and elaborates the relationship of this text, and the others discussed, to the religious and political climate Babylonia. The volume includes 70 plates (primarily hand-copies of the various exemplars of Enuma Elish) and extensive indexes.

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This ambitious and well-researched study brings together for the first time translations of the ancient literature concerning the Sumerian god Enki, one of four gods and goddesses who comprised the highest level of the Sumerian pantheon. The very existence of these writings, which date from the Third Millennium B.C., was unknown until about 100 years ago, when their cuneiform script was deciphered. Since then, it has become apparent that Sumerian literature had a profound and enduring influence on both Biblical and classical Greek literature, and so on the literature of the western world as a whole. Kramer, one of the world's leading sumerologists, has prepared these translations from among the scores of works he has published over the last fifty years; John Maier provides a full interpretive framework that places the translations in their broader comparative cultural context. This rare collection will be of interest to students and scholars in a wide range of disciplines from Near Eastern and Biblical Studies to Mythology and Comparative Literature.

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Do you know that the Mesopotamians did not believe in life after death? Or that their Queen of the Underworld and their arrogant God of War and Pestilence had an epic love story? In this collection, you will enjoy the epic stories of Ancient Mesopotamia that echoed through other great works like the Bible and the Odyssey. The Sumerian belief system offers a fascinating insight into the lives of these ancient people as they struggled to establish the first empires of man. Some of the fantastic stories included are: - The Epic of Gilgamesh: The adventure of Gilgamesh, a tyrannical king who is blessed with a true friend and companion, Enkidu. As they set out to make their names, the young men encounter demons, gods and goddesses, and death. It is the first recorded hero's epic! - Creation Myths: The Ancient Mesopotamians had a vivid idea of their origins. Learn how they saw their role in the cosmos and interpreted events in their lives. - The Descent of Ishtar: No good collection of myths would be complete without a trip to the Underworld. In this myth, the Queen of Heaven is not content with her lot and seeks to gain the power of the Underworld as well. - The Epic of Etana - One of the original action-adventure stories is the story of Etana. Through divine providence, Etana is elevated from shepherd to king but cannot conceive an heir. With help from the gods and a less than honorable giant eagle, he seeks to find the plant that will let his wife bear him a child. - Ereshkigal and Nergal: Stories of star-crossed lovers are common enough, but the Mesopotamian version has a unique twist. Ereshkigal and Nergal are the most unlikely of bedfellows! And so much more! These stories and many more are compiled in story form in Mesopotamian Mythology: Classic stories from the Sumerian Mythology, Akkadian Mythology, Babylonian Mythology and Assyrian Mythology. Get your copy and dive into this fascinating world today!

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The current investigation has been divided into three main chapters. In the first two chapters, the primary focus is the relationship between Ninurta and kingship. The first chapter gives a diachronic overview of the cult of Ninurta during all historical periods of ancient Mesopotamia. This chapter shows that the conception of Ninurta's identity with the king was present in Mesopotamian religion already in the third millennium BC. Ninurta was the god of Nippur, the religious centre of Sumerian cities, and his most important attribute was his sonship to Enlil. While the mortal gods were frequently called the sons of Enlil, the status of the king converged with that of Ninurta at his coronation, through the determination of the royal fate, carried out by the divine council of gods in Nippur. The fate of Ninurta parallels the fate of the king after the investiture. Religious syncretism is studied in the second chapter. The configuration of Nippur cults left a legacy for the religious life of Babylonia and Assyria. The Nippur trinity of the father Enlil, the mother Ninlil, and the son Ninurta had direct descendants in the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon, realized in Babylonia as Marduk, Zarpanitu, and Nabu, and as Assur, Mullissu, and Ninurta in Assyria. While the names changed, the configuration of the cult survived, even when, from the eighth century BC onwards, Ninurta's name was to a large extent replaced by that of Nabu. In the third chapter various manifestations or hypostases of Ninurta are discussed. Besides the monster slayer, Ninurta was envisaged as farmer, star and arrow, healer, and tree. All these manifestations confirm the strong ties between the cult of Ninurta and kingship. By slaying Asakku, Ninurta eliminated evil from the world, and accordingly he was considered the god of healing. The healing, helping, and saving of a believer who was in misery was thus a natural result of Ninurta's victorious battles. The theologoumenon of Ninurta's mission and return was used as the mythological basis for quite a few royal rituals, and this fact explains the extreme longevity of the Sumerian literary compositions Angim and Lugale, from the third until the first millennium BC. Ninurta also protected legitimate ownership of land and granted protection for refugees in a special temple of the land. The "faithful farmer" is an epithet for both Ninurta and the king. Kingship myths similar to the battles of Ninurta are attested in an area far extending the bounds of the ancient Near East. The conflict myth on which the Ninurta mythology was based is probably of prehistoric origin, and various forms of the kingship myths continued to carry the ideas of usurpation, conflict, and dominion until late Antiquity.

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Scholarly proposals are presented for the pre-biblical origin in Mesopotamian myths of the Garden of Eden story. Some Liberal PhD scholars (1854-2010) embracing an Anthropological viewpoint have proposed that the Hebrews have recast earlier motifs appearing in Mesopotamian myths. Eden's garden is understood to be a recast of the gods' city-gardens in the Sumerian Edin, the floodplain of Lower Mesopotamia. It is understood that the Hebrews in the book of Genesis are refuting the Mesopotamian account of why Man was created and his relationship with his Creators (the gods and goddesses). They deny that Man is a sinner and rebel because he was made in the image of gods and goddesses who were themselves sinners and rebels, who made man to be their agricultural slave to grow and harvest their food and feed it to them in temple sacrifices thereby ending the need of the gods to toil for their food in the city-gardens of Edin in ancient Sumer.

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This volume deals with the myths and legends of Babylonia and Assyria, and as these reflect the civilization in which they developed, a historical narrative has been provided, beginning with the early Sumerian Age and concluding with the periods of the Persian and Grecian Empires. Over thirty centuries of human progress are thus passed under review. Keywords: myth, legend, ancient, religion, classic

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Thirteen-year-old Sikander Aziz has to team up with the hero Gilgamesh in order to stop Nergal, the ancient god of plagues, from wiping out the population of Manhattan in this adventure based on Mesopotamian mythology.

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Ancient Mesopotamia was a rich, varied and highly complex culture whose achievements included the invention of writing and the development of sophisticated urban society. This book offers an introductory guide to the beliefs and customs of the ancient Mesopotamians, as revealed in their art and their writings between about 3000 B.C. and the advent of the Christian era. Gods, goddesses, demons, monsters, magic, myths, religious symbolism, ritual, and the spiritual world are all discussed in alphabetical entries ranging from short accounts to extended essays. Names are given in both their Sumerian and Akkadian forms, and all entries are fully cross-referenced. A useful introduction provides historical and geographical background and describes the sources of our knowledge about the religion, mythology and magic of "the cradle of civilisation".

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The civilizations that grew up in the Tigris and Euphrates River Valleys many thousands of years ago have left important legacies: agriculture, mathematics, astronomy, the wheel, and writing.

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Babylonian myths, inherited in Mesopotamia from Sumeria, influenced by the ancient Assyrians represent a pinnacle of human achievement in the period around 1800 BC. Here we find humankind battling with the elements in their Flood myth, a grim creation story and the great Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest recorded literary treasures. Babylon, a powerful city state at the time of the ancient Egyptians was a centre of profound spiritual, economic and military power, themes all represented in the fragments and myths of this book of classic tales. FLAME TREE 451: From mystery to crime, supernatural to horror and myth, fantasy and science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and mechanical men, blood-lusty vampires, dastardly villains, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic.

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Rivkah Harris’s cross-cultural and multidisciplinary approach breaks new ground in assessing Mesopotamian attitudes toward youth and mature adulthood, aging and the elderly, generational conflict, gender differences in aging, relationships between men and women, women’s contributions to cultural activities, and the "ideal woman." To uncover Mesopotamian perspectives, Harris combed through primary sources - including literature and myth, letters, economic and legal texts, and visual materials. Even such pivotal cultural influences as the Gilgamesh Epic and Enuma Elish are reinterpreted in an original manner.