Religion and Humanity in Mesopotamian Myth and Epic

Further Reading
Essential introductory reading
Black, Jeremy, Graham Cunningham, Eleanor Robson, and Gábor Zólyomi. The Literature of Ancient Sumer. Oxford: 
Oxford University Press, 2004.
Bottéro, Jean. Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods. Translated by Zainab Bahrani and Marc Van De 
Mieroop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Bottéro, Jean. Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia. Translated by Teresa L. Fagan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 
2001.
Ehrlich, Carl S. From an Antique Land: An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature. Plymouth: Rowman & 
Littlefield, 2009.
Foley, John Miles, ed. A Companion to Ancient Epic. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005.
Hrůša, Ivan. Ancient Mesopotamian Religion: A Descriptive Introduction. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2015.
Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Treasures of Darkness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976.
Jacobsen, Thorkild. “Mesopotamian Religions: An Overview (First Edition).” In Encyclopedia of Religion. Edited by 
Lindsay Jones, 5946–5963. 2d ed. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.
Pettinato, Giovanni. “Mesopotamian Religions: Further Considerations.” In Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Lindsay 
Jones, 5963–5967. 2d ed. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005.
Useful works
Alster, Bendt. Wisdom of Ancient Sumer. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2005.
Asher-Greve, Julia M., and Joan Goodnick Westenholz. Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships 
and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 259. Fribourg and Göttingen, 
Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013.
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Black, Jeremy. Reading Sumerian Poetry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
Black, Jeremy, and Anthony Green. Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia. Illustrated by Tessa Rickards. 
London: British Museum Press, 1992.
Crawford, Harriet, ed. The Sumerian World. Abingdon, U.K.: Routledge, 2013.
Hallo, William W. The World’s Oldest Literature: Studies in Sumerian Belles-Lettres. Boston: Brill, 2010.
Leick, Gwendolyn, ed. The Babylonian World. New York: Routledge, 2009.
Sasson, Jack, ed. Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. New York: Scribner, 1995.
Schneider, Tammi J. An Introduction to Ancient Mesopotamian Religion. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011.
Snell, Daniel C. Religions of the Ancient Near East. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Notes
1. Gwendolyn Leick, Historical Dictionary of Mesopotamia (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2010), xiii.
2. Graham Cunningham, “The Sumerian Language,” in The Sumerian World, ed. Harriet Crawford (New York: 
Routledge, 2013), 118.
3. For the complications involved in unquestioningly linking “Sumerian mythology” to an independent Sumerian 
culture, see Benjamin R. Foster, “Sumerian Mythology,” in The Sumerian World, ed. Harriet Crawford (New York: 
Routledge, 2013), 451–452.
4. Benjamin R. Foster, “Akkadian Literature,” in From an Antique Land: An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern 
Literature, ed. Carl Ehrlich (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 137–214.
5. Gonzalo Rubio, “Sumerian Literature,” in From an Antique Land: An Introduction to Ancient Near Eastern Literature, 
ed. Carl S. Ehrlich (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), 22–25.
6. Jack Sasson, “Comparative Observations on the Near Eastern Epic Traditions,” in A Companion to Ancient Epic, ed. 
John Miles Foley (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), 220.
7. Lowell Edmunds, “Epic and Myth,” in A Companion to Ancient Epic, ed. John Miles Foley (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 
2005), 31–32.
8. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Standard Babylonian Version VI.46–47.
9. Julia Kindt, “The Story of Theology and the Theology of the Story,” in The Theologies of Ancient Greek Religion, ed. 
Julia Kindt, Esther Eidinow and Robin Osborne (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
10. For an overview of Mesopotamian religion, as well as the roles and characters of the individual deities of the 
Mesopotamian pantheon, see Astrid Nunn’s article in ORE, “Ancient Near Eastern Gods (and Religion).”
11. See, for example, the significance of providing a definition for “religion,” in Armin W. Geertz, “Definition as 
Analytical Strategy in the Study of Religion,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historique 25.3 (1999): 445–475.

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