Sumerian Mythology (Hardcover)
First published in 1944, "Sumerian Mythology" was written by Samuel Noah Kramer, a leading figure in the creation of the modern discipline of Sumerology. He was the first to piece together, decipher, and edit major works of Sumerian mythology and literature.
The Sumerians were a non-Semitic, non-Indo-European people who flourished in southern Babylonia from the beginning of the fourth to the end of the third millennium B.C. During this long stretch of time the Sumerians, whose racial and linguistic affiliations are still unclassifiable, represented the dominant cultural group of the entire Near East.
The Sumerians were the pragmatic and gifted people who created what was probably the first high civilization in the history of man. This book is an unparalleled compendium of what is known about them.
"First, the linguistic difficulties. Sumerian is neither a Semitic nor an Indo-European language. It belongs to the so-called agglutinative type of languages exemplified by Turkish, Hungarian, and Finnish."
— Samuel Noah Kramer (Sumerian Mythology)
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About the Author
Dr. Samuel Noah Kramer, Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania, 1929; born Simcha Kramer), was a historian, philologist, and Assyriologist, particularly renowned as an expert in the language and history of Sumer. He was Clark Research Professor Emeritus of Assyriology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was also Curator Emeritus of the Tablet Collections.
Dr. Kramer is often credited with the virtual creation of Sumerian cuneiform literature as an academic field, in which he wrote some 30 books for both academic and popular audiences. was a member of the American Oriental Society, Archeological Institute of America, Society of Biblical Literature and American Philosophical Society, which awarded him its John Frederick Lewis Prize.