Through accessible entries this Dictionary provides a scholarly guide to this complex and fascinating area. The wide-ranging bibliography makes use of unfamiliar sources, and there is an extensive index for ease of reference.
Through accessible entries this Dictionary provides a scholarly guide to this complex and fascinating area. The wide-ranging bibliography makes use of unfamiliar sources, and there is an extensive index for ease of reference.
Since the spectacular discovery of Nineveh 150 years ago, countless excavators have been searching for the lost civilizations of the ancient Near East. We now know the names of thousands of gods and goddesses, the words of hymns and litanies, the daily procedures of the Babylonian cult, as well as a growing number of mythological tales. A substantial number of the texts discussed in this volume originate from the archives of such ancient cities as Nineveh, Ur, Babylon and Hattusa. Through a collection of accessible entries, which provide sufficient detail and cross-referencing to be of use to the more specialist reader, Gwendolyn Leick has produced a scholarly guide to this complex and little-known world of ancient mythology. There is a wide-ranging bibliography which makes use of a particularly interesting and possibly unfamiliar collection of sources, and an extensive index for ease of reference.
'Recommended for both college and university libraries, public libraries, theological libraries, and anyone interested in ancient history.' - Choice
'It is a straightforward attempt to summarize the mythology as written in the widely disseminated and often fragmentary texts that have been recovered.' - Booklist
Gwendolyn Leick is Lecturer at the University of Wales, College of Cardiff.
The Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology covers sources from Mesopotamia, Syro-Palestine and Anatolia, from around 2800 to 300 BC. It contains entries on gods and goddesses, giving evidence of their worship in temples, describing their 'character', as documented by the texts, and defining their roles within the body of mythological narratives; synoptic entries on myths, giving the place of origin of main texts and a brief history of their transmission through the ages; and entries explaining the use of specialist terminology, for such things as categories of Sumerian texts or types of mythological figures.
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