Babylonian Historical Literary Texts

Early Assyriologists were lured to Babylonian studies by the light which cuneiform text shed on ancient history and the Bible, and for later scholars this is still the attraction. The Age of Discovery is not past, and one can still read literature that has been unseen by the eyes of man for millennia. There are myriads of tablets lying in the ancient ruins of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey, waiting for the excavator's spade; in museums there are quantities of inscriptions that have not yet been made public.

This book surveys within the various literary genres (cosmologies, personal archives and epics, hymns, and prayers) parallels between the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern literature.

Basing himself on a careful study of all hitherto published (and some unpublished) Old-Babylonian literary texts - roughly 270 different compositions of all literary genres - Dr. Wasserman systematically leads the reader to a number of insightful conclusions regarding distinctive style and outstanding features of the Old-Babylonian literary system (as opposed to everyday texts, such as letters). The three opening chapters - Hendiadys, Tamyīz, and Damqam-īnim - are mainly concerned with syntax, but also connections with inalienability, a semantic issue. Chapter four and five, Merismus and Simile, focus on semantics (though also including word order). The last chapter, Rhyming Couplets, is fully devoted to form, with elaborations on such semantic problems as performative speech acts. The concluding pages delineate the contours of the Old-Babylonian literary system; genres and 'genre-families', the dichotomy between oral and written traditions, and the distinction between learned and popular literature. With a detailed catalogue of all known literary Old-Babylonian compositions.

In this brilliant analysis, Radau organizes the archival and inscriptional material from c. 4500 BCE to c. 2300 BCE. The volume includes extensive transcriptions and translations of the relevant documents along with the author's historical judgments. Also included are chronological tables and lists, as well as a new Select Bibliography. Contents 1 Introduction 2 Lord of Kengi 3 Rulers of Shirpurla 4 Kings of Kish and Gishban 5 The First Dynasty of Ur 6 The Patesis of Shirpurla between Lummadur and Ur-Ba'u 7 Kings of Agade 8 The Kings of Guti and Lulubi 9 The So-called Later Patesis of Shirpurla 10 The Second Dynasty of Ur 11 Kings of Erech 12 Kings of Isin 13 The Third Dynasty of Ur 14 the Fourth Dynasty of Ur 15 The Names of the Months 16 The Sign of 'God' before Certain Proper Names 17 Appendix: The E. A. Hoffman Collection of Babylonian Clay-tablets 18 Indices

These essays represent a summation of Piotr Steinkeller's decades-long thinking and writing about the history of third millennium BCE Babylonia and the ways in which it is reflected in ancient historical and literary sources and art, as well as of how these written and visual materials may be used by the modern historian to attain, if not a reliable record of histoire événementielle, a comprehensive picture of how the ancients understood their history. The book focuses on the history of early Babylonian kingship, as it evolved over a period from Late Uruk down to Old Babylonian times, and the impact of the concepts of kingship on contemporaneous history writing and visual art. Here comparisons are drawn between Babylonia and similar developments in ancient Egypt, China and Mesoamerica. Other issues treated is the intersection between history writing and the scholarly, lexical, and literary traditions in early Babylonia; and the question of how the modern historian should approach the study of ancient sources of "historical" nature. Such a broad and comprehensive overview is novel in Mesopotamian studies to date. As such, it should contribute to an improved and more nuanced understanding of early Babylonian history.

Originally published: Locust Valley, N.Y.: J. J. Augustin, 1975.

"Babylonian and Assyrian Literature" by Anonymous, Epiphanius Wilson (translated by Julius Oppert, M. Ménant). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.