Sumerian Mythology: Did you mean...?

The Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia is the modern-day archaeological term for the era in Mesopotamian history – circa 2900 to circa 2350/2334 BCE – during which some of the most significant cultural advances were made, including the...

The Gutians were a West Asiatic people who are thought to have lived around the Zagros Mountains in a region referred to as Gutium. They had no written language and all that is known of them comes from their enemies, including the Akkadians...

Elements of Norse mythology abound in The Lord of the Rings, and none is so compelling as the ring itself. The One Ring is reminiscent of magic rings in Norse lore, especially Odin's Draupnir or Andvaranaut from the legend of the Volsungs...

Achilles The hero of the Trojan War, leader of the Myrmidons, slayer of Hector and Greece's greatest warrior, who sadly came unstuck when Paris sent a flying arrow guided by Apollo, which caught him in his only weak spot, his heel. Adonis...

Elves and dwarves represent minor divine figures in Norse mythology. Elves (álfar) and dwarves (dvergar) have in common their talent for creating precious objects, skill, agility, and moral ambiguity. Dwarves appear in several important stories...

The Matter of Aratta is the modern-day title for a collection of four poems – Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana, Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, and Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird – concerning the rivalry between...

Mesopotamian science and technology developed during the Uruk period (circa 4000-3100 BCE) and the Early Dynastic period (circa 2900-2350/2334 BCE) of the Sumerian culture of southern Mesopotamia. The foundation of future Mesopotamian advances...

Elam was a region in the Near East corresponding to the modern-day provinces of Ilam and Khuzestan in southern Iran (though it also included part of modern-day southern Iraq) whose civilization spanned thousands of years from circa 3200 to...

This hymn to the goddess Ishtar is written in Sumerian; after every line in Sumerian, the text is translated in Akkadian. Such translations have been invaluable to modern scholars. They reflect how the Sumerian language had become difficult...

The myths and legends of ancient Greece included a wide variety of fearsome creatures and monsters, such as dragons, giants, demons, and multiformed beings like the sphinx, minotaur, centaurs, and griffins. These terrifying entities often...