Mesopotamia & Sumer
3 books
Start Here · Babylon
Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization
3,000 years of Mesopotamia in one readable volume. Argues almost everything we call "civilization" — cities, writing, law, banking, the seven-day week — was invented between the Tigris and Euphrates.
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Sumer
The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character
Kramer is the man who taught the world to read Sumerian. He translated the original tablets the rest of the field still argues over — including the flood story that predates Genesis by 1,500 years.
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Primary Source
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The oldest surviving piece of literature on Earth — a 4,000-year-old Sumerian epic about a king who meets the flood survivor and is told the story of the ark, three birds, and a mountain landing. Read it yourself.
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