General Overviews on the History, Culture & Literature of Mesopotamia

General Overviews on Mesopotamian Civilisation

• Jastrow Jr., Morris, The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Ginn & Co., Boston, 1898 [= Handbooks on the History of Religion, nr. 2]) [ETANA link] – review in: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, 15 (1899), 244-247 [G.A. Barton] [JSTOR link].
  • German translation: Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens (Töpelmann, Gießen, 1905-’12), 2 vols. – review in: Babyloniaca: Études de philologie assyro-babylonienne, 4 (1911), 81-93 [A.P. Boissier] [UMDL link].
• Meißner, Bruno, Babylonien und Assyrien (Carl Winters Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg, 1920-’25 [= Kulturgeschichtliche Bibliothek, I. Reihe, nr. 3-4]), 2 vols. – chapters 15, 18 & 21 give summaries on Mesopotamian cosmology and astrology, also includes a map of the Babylonian constellations drawn for the epoch –2200 by E.F. Weidner – review in: Archiv für Orientforschung, 4 (1927), 27-29 & 95-97 [S. Langdon].
• Ebeling, Erich, Meißner, Bruno, Weidner, Ernst Friedrich, von Soden, Wolfram, Edzard, Dietz Otto (eds.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin [etc.], 1928-...), 9 vols. published – the first 3 vols. were published as Reallexikon der Assyriologie.
• Saggs, Henry William Frederick, The Greatness that was Babylon: A Sketch of the Ancient Civilization of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley (Mentor Books, New York/Scarborough, 1962).
• Oppenheim, Adolf Leo, Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1964 [2nd ed., 1977]).
• Borger, Rykle, Handbuch der Keilschriftliteratur (Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, 1967-’75), 3 vols.
• Hallo, William W. & Simpson, William K., The Ancient Near East: A History, 2nd ed. (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, Fort Worth, 1971 [2nd ed. 1998]).
• Oates, Joan, Babylon (Thames & Hudson, London, 1988).
• Roaf, Michael, Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East (Equinox, Oxford, 1990).
• Kramer, Samuel Noah, History Begins at Sumer, ??th ed. (University of Philadelphia Press, Philadelphia, 1991).
• Bottéro, Jean, Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning and the Gods (University of Chicago Press, Chicago/London, 1992).
• Kuhrt, Amélie, The Ancient Near East c. 3000-330 BC (Routledge, London/New York, 1995), 2 vols.
• Sasson, Jack M. (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1995), 4 vols.
• van de Mieroop, Marc, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC (Blackwell Publishing, Malden/Oxford/Victoria, 2004 [= Blackwell History of the Ancient World, nr. 1]).
• Boiy, Tom, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon (Orientalia Lovaniensa Analecta, Louvain, 2005).

Major Collections of Translated Cuneiform Texts and Anthologies

• Birch, Samuel & Sayce, Archibald Henry (eds.), Records of the Past, Being English Translations of the Ancient Monuments of Egypt and Western Asia (Samuel Bagster & Sons Ltd., London 1873-’92), 18 vols. in two series – partially available online.
• Schrader, Eberhard, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament (Ricker, Gießen 1872) – revised edition appeared in 1883 (includes a contribution by Paul Haupt).
• English translation of the 2nd ed. by O.C Whitehouse: Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament (???, London, 1885/88).
• Completely revised 3rd ed. by Friedrich David Heinrich Zummern & Hugo Winckler, Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament: Mit Ausdehnung auf die Apokryphen, Pseudepigraphen und das Neue Testament (Reuther & Reichard, Berlin, 1902/03), 2 vols.
• Winckler, Hugo, Keilinschriftliches Textbuch zum alten Testament (Pfeiffer, Leipzig, 1892) – revised editions appeared in 1903 & 1909.
• Harper, Robert Francis, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters Belonging to the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1892-1914), 14 vols. – letters from this edition are commonly identified by the prefix ABL – review in: The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, 17 (1901), 160-167 [R.C. Thompson] [JSTOR link].
• Jeremias, Alfred Karl Gabriel, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des alten Orients: Handbuch zur biblisch-orientalischen Altertumskunde (Hinrichs, Leipzig, 1904) – revised editions appeared in 1906, 1916 & 1930.
• English translation of the 2nd ed. by C.L. Beaumont: The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East (???, New York, 1911 [= Theological Translation Library, nrs. 28 & 29]), 2 vols.
• Greßmann, Hugo Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm, Ungnad, Arthur & Ranke, Hermann, Altorientalische Texte und Bilder zum Alten Testamente (J.C.B. Mohr, Tübingen, 1909), 2 vols. – revised edition appeared in 1926/27.
• Rogers, Robert William, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (Eaton & Mains, New York, 1912) – revised edition appeared in 1926.
• Jean, Charles-François, La littérature des Babyloniens et des Assyriens (Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, Paris, 1924).
• Pritchard, James B. (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1950) – texts from this work are commonly referred to as ANET – revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1955 and 1969.
• Pritchard, James B. (ed.), The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1954) – this companion volume to ANET is commonly referred to as ANEP – revised edition appeared in 1969.
• Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments (Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, Gütersloh, 1981-...), 13 vols. in two series – texts from this work are commonly referred to as TUAT.
• Band 1: Rechts- und Wirtschaftskunden, Historisch-chronologische Texte (1981/85) – in 6 parts.
• Band 2: Religiöse Texte (1986/91) – in 6 parts.
• Band 3: Weisheitstexte, Mythen und Epen (1990/97) – in 6 parts.
• TUAT Ergänzungslieferung (2001).
• Neue Folge. Band 1: Texte zum Rechts- und Wirtschaftsleben (2004).
• Neue Folge. Band 2: Staatsverträge, Herrscherinschriften und andere Dokumente zur politischen Geschichte (not yet published).
• Neue Folge. Band 3: Briefe (not yet published).
• Neue Folge. Band 4: Omina, Orakel, Rituale und Beschwörungen (not yet published).
• Neue Folge. Band 5: Medizinische Texte (not yet published).
• Neue Folge. Band 6: Grab-, Sarg-, Nau- und Votivinschriften (not yet published).
• Neue Folge. Band 7: Hymnen und Gebete (not yet published).
• Neue Folge. Band 8: Weisheitstexte (not yet published).
• Neue Folge. Band 9: Mythen und Epen (not yet published).
• Neue Folge. Band 10: Bildband (not yet published).
• Foster, Benjamin R., Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (CDL Press, Bethesda, 1993).
• Foster, Benjamin R., From Distant Days: Myths, Tales, and Poetry of Ancient Mesopotamia (CDL Press, Bethesda, 1995).
• Hallo, William W. & Younger, K. Lawson (eds.), The Context of Scripture: Canonical Compositions, Monumental Inscriptions and Archival Documents from the Biblical World (Brill, Leiden, 1997-2002), 3 vols. – texts from this work are commonly referred to as COS.
• Volume 1: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World (1997).
• Volume 2: Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World (2000).
• Volume 3: Archival Documents from the Biblical World (2002).
• A concordance of the texts found in both ANET and COS is given in the COS/ANET Index.