Download or read book The Literature of Ancient Sumer written by Jeremy A. Black and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sumerian is the oldest written language of ancient Iraq, first written down some 5,000 years ago. Its literature, encompassing narrative myths, lyrical hymns, proverbs and love poetry, provides a stimulating insight into the world's first urban civilization. This is a comprehensive collection.
Download or read book The Sumerians written by Samuel Noah Kramer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-09-17 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sumerians, the pragmatic and gifted people who preceded the Semites in the land first known as Sumer and later as Babylonia, created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man, spanning the fifth to the second millenniums B.C. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them. Professor Kramer communicates his enthusiasm for his subject as he outlines the history of the Sumerian civilization and describes their cities, religion, literature, education, scientific achievements, social structure, and psychology. Finally, he considers the legacy of Sumer to the ancient and modern world. "There are few scholars in the world qualified to write such a book, and certainly Kramer is one of them. . . . One of the most valuable features of this book is the quantity of texts and fragments which are published for the first time in a form available to the general reader. For the layman the book provides a readable and up-to-date introduction to a most fascinating culture. For the specialist it presents a synthesis with which he may not agree but from which he will nonetheless derive stimulation."—American Journal of Archaeology "An uncontested authority on the civilization of Sumer, Professor Kramer writes with grace and urbanity."—Library Journal
Download or read book The Textual Criticism of Sumerian Literature written by Paul Delnero and published by American Society of Overseas Research. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction -- Mechanical errors -- Local and regional variation -- Diachronic variation -- Variants in sources compiled by the same scribe or group of scribes -- Idiosyncratic variants -- Interpretive variants -- Procedure for evaluating textual variation -- Conclusion.
Download or read book Sumerian Literary Texts in the Sch yen Collection written by Christopher Metcalf and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2019-08-15 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first in a series of volumes publishing the Sumerian literary texts in the Schøyen Collection, this book makes available, for the first time, editions of seventeen cuneiform tablets, dating to ca. 2000 BCE and containing works of Sumerian religious poetry. Edited, translated, and annotated by Christopher Metcalf, these poems shed light on the interaction between cult, scholarship, and scribal culture in Mesopotamia in the early second millennium BCE. The present volume contains fourteen songs composed in praise of the various gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon; it is believed that these songs were typically performed in temple cults. Among them are a song in praise of Sud, goddess of the ancient Mesopotamian city Shuruppak; a song describing the statue of the protective goddess Lamma-saga in the “Sacred City” temple complex at Girsu; and a previously unknown hymn dedicated to the creator god Enki. Each text is provided in transliteration and translation and accompanied by hand-copies and images of the tablets themselves. Expertly contextualizing each song in Babylonian religious and literary history, this thoroughly competent editio princeps will prove a valuable tool for scholars interested in the literary and religious traditions of ancient Mesopotamia.
Download or read book Analysing Literary Sumerian written by Jarle Ebeling and published by Equinox Publishing (UK). This book was released on 2007 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together pioneering studies on the world's oldest literature, composed in the extinct language Sumerian and written on clay in the cuneiform (wedge-shaped) script. All the contributions are based on the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), a project of the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University whose focus is on the best documented period of Sumerian literature, compositions recorded some 4,000 years ago in southern Iraq. The ETCSL consists of transliterations and translations of nearly 400 compositions and is accessible via the Internet. It is the only linguistically annotated and translated corpus of an ancient Near Eastern language. Each of the main chapters in the book uses the ETCSL to approach a specific question relating to one or more compositions in the corpus, exploiting the possibilities the corpus offers for quantitative research and statistical analysis. In addition to these case studies, the book includes introductions to Sumerian literary language and corpus-linguistic approaches to research, as well as a catalogue of compositions. The material, methods, and results will appeal to those interested in Sumerian, ancient literature, and the analysis of languages using a corpus.
Download or read book The World s Oldest Literature written by William W. Hallo and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010 with total page 801 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literature begins at Sumer, we may say. Given that this ancient crossroads of tin and copper produced not only bronze and the entire Bronze Age, but also by neccesity, the first system of record-keeping and the technique of writing. Scribal schools served to propogate the new technique and their curriculum grew to create, preserve and transmit all manner of creative poetry. In a lifetime of research, the author has studied multiple aspects of this most ancient literary oeuvre, including such questions as chronology and bilingualism, as well as contributing fundamental insights into specific genres such as proverbs, letter-prayers and lamentations. In addition, he has drawn conclusions for the comparative or contextual approach to biblical literature. His studies, widely scattered in diverse publications for nearly fifty years, are here assembled in convenient one-volume format, made more user-friendly by extensive cross-references and indices.
Download or read book Religion Literature and Scholarship written by Niek Veldhuis and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2004 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses insights from religious studies, literary theory, and the history of science for understanding the Sumerian composition "Nanse and the Birds" in the context of the Old Babylonian scribal school. The discussions of Babylonian religion, literature, and scholarship focus on the usefulness and relevance of these modern concepts for categorizing the ancient text. The volume presents the first critical edition of "Nanse and the Birds," as well as editions of the hymn Nanse B and all third millennium and Old Babylonian lexical lists of birds. It includes 37 plates with photographs and line drawings, including many previously unpublished tablets. The final chapter discusses the identity and orthography of all Sumerian bird names in literary, administrative and lexical texts.
Download or read book The Literature of Ancient Sumer written by Jeremy Black and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-11-25 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sumerian is the oldest written language of ancient Iraq, first written down some 5000 years ago. Its literature, encompassing narrative myths, lyrical hymns, proverbs, and love poetry, provides a stimulating insight into the world's first urban civilization. Written in clear, accessible English, these translations are the most comprehensive collection of the world's first literature.
Download or read book The Sumerian World written by Harriet Crawford and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 936 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sumerian World explores the archaeology, history and art of southern Mesopotamia and its relationships with its neighbours from c.3,000 - 2,000BC. Including material hitherto unpublished from recent excavations, the articles are organised thematically using evidence from archaeology, texts and the natural sciences. This broad treatment will also make the volume of interest to students looking for comparative data in allied subjects such as ancient literature and early religions. Providing an authoritative, comprehensive and up to date overview of the Sumerian period written by some of the best qualified scholars in the field, The Sumerian World will satisfy students, researchers, academics, and the knowledgeable layperson wishing to understand the world of southern Mesopotamia in the third millennium.
Download or read book The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur written by Nili Samet and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2014-03-31 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal of this book is to present a revised edition of the Sumerian Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur, a lament bewailing the fall of the glorious Ur III kingdom in 2004 B.C.E. Lamentation is a well-known genre in world literature. Laments of various types are part of the cultural legacy and literary corpus of many societies, from ancient to modern times, and Sumerian literature is no exception. However, Mesopotamian lamentation literature includes a significant body of laments belonging to a unique and almost unparalleled genre—the genre of lamentations over the destruction of cities and temples. This genre has no known ancient parallel outside the ancient Near East; more specifically, it is almost exclusively attested in Sumerian and biblical literature. The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur is the most famous and important exemplar of the city-laments. In this updated and revised publication of the Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur, Samet provides an introductory discussion of Sumerian city-laments in general; a full presentation of the text of the Ur Lament, including transliteration, translation, and an extensive philological commentary; and an accounting of the extant textual witness in score format. Plates with color photos of many texts are included.
Download or read book Reading Sumerian Poetry written by Jeremy A. Black and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authority on ancient Mesopotamian culture, Jeremy Black here provides an introduction to the world's oldest poetry. Sumer, in southern Iraq, was the first literate civilization, with writing dating back as far as 3100 B.C. Its extensive poetic literature was lost for nearly two millennia; rediscovery and decipherment of the ancient writings began in the nineteenth century. Black is fully aware of the difficulties of applying modern literary methods to the study of ancient literature, emphasizing theoretical problems that arise from contemporary expectations of a unitary text. Looking closely at the imagery in the Lugalbanda poems, Black perceives in them a rich and sophisticated poetic imagination and technique, which, far from being in any sense "primitive," are so complex as to resist modern literary analysis.
Download or read book The Epic of Gilgamish written by R. Campbell Thompson and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2022-10-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book Wisdom of Ancient Sumer written by Bendt Alster and published by Eisenbrauns. This book was released on 2005 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discussion of the nature of Sumerian wisdom literature and complete editions of many Sumerian wisdom texts, including the Instructions of Shuruppak, Instructions of Ur-Ninurta, Counsels of Wisdom, Sumerian fables, Nothing Is of Value, Ballade of Early Rulers, and more. This unusual book describes the Sumerian literature and many of their proverbs featured in speeches of wise men of that time.
Download or read book Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian written by Joshua Bowen and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages written by Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers the major languages, language families, and writing systems attested in the Ancient Near East Filled with enlightening chapters by noted experts in the field, this book introduces Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) languages and language families used during the time period of roughly 3200 BCE to the second century CE in the areas of Egypt, the Levant, eastern Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Iran. In addition to providing grammatical sketches of the respective languages, the book focuses on socio-linguistic questions such as language contact, diglossia, the development of literary standard languages, and the development of diplomatic languages or “linguae francae.” It also addresses the interaction of Ancient Near Eastern languages with each other and their roles within the political and cultural systems of ANE societies. Presented in five parts, The Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages provides readers with in-depth chapter coverage of the writing systems of ANE, starting with their decipherment. It looks at the emergence of cuneiform writing; the development of Egyptian writing in the fourth and early third millennium BCI; and the emergence of alphabetic scripts. The book also covers many of the individual languages themselves, including Sumerian, Egyptian, Akkadian, Hittite, Pre- and Post-Exilic Hebrew, Phoenician, Ancient South Arabian, and more. Provides an overview of all major language families and writing systems used in the Ancient Near East during the time period from the beginning of writing (approximately 3200 BCE) to the second century CE (end of cuneiform writing) Addresses how the individual languages interacted with each other and how they functioned in the societies that used them Written by leading experts on the languages and topics The Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages is an ideal book for undergraduate students and scholars interested in Ancient Near Eastern cultures and languages or certain aspects of these languages.
Download or read book Mesopotamian Poetic Language written by Marianna E. Vogelzang and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1996-01-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of articles is the result of the second meeting of the Mesopotamian Literature Group (Groningen), held in Groningen from 12 till 14 July 1993. The topics treated by these scholars from six countries range from theoretical issues to specific analyses, from broad structures to linguistic textures, including metaphorical language as well as phonic features; also, various poetical techniques and strategies are studied. The interest is more in the questions that are raised than in the answers given, and the matter of legitimization of our theoretical bases runs throughout most contributions, this being the aim of the Group.
Download or read book THE SUMERIANS THEIR HISTORY CULTURE AND CHARACTER written by SAMUEL NOAH KRAMER and published by . This book was released on 1963 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
