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Noah's Ark and Floods in the Ancient Near East: Crash Course World Mythology #16
This week on Crash Course mythology, Mike is talking to you about floods. You may have heard the story of Noah and the Ark from the Bible, but that is not the only flood story humans tell. Turns out, it's a common thing across cultures`...
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Mesopotamian Religion
Mesopotamian religion was central to the people's lives. Humans were created as co-laborers with their gods to hold off the forces of chaos and to keep the world running smoothly. As in ancient Egypt, the gods were honored daily for providing...
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Hero Overpowering a Lion
The Hero Overpowering a Lion Neo-Assyrian period, reign of Sargon II (721-705 BC) Khorsabad, ancient city of Dur Sharrukin, facade N of the throne room of the palace of Sargon II, Assyria (Iraq). High relief, gypseous alabaster, traces...
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Humbaba the Ogre
Clay head of an ogre, most probably Humbaba of the Cedar Forest. From Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. Old Babylonian period, 2003-1595 BCE. The Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraq.
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The Song of the Hoe
The Song of the Hoe is a Sumerian praise poem celebrating the hoe for its many uses and linking it to the creation of the world by the great god Enlil. As the economy of Mesopotamia was almost entirely based on agriculture, it is not surprising...
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Matter of Aratta
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...
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The Iraq Museum: A Brightness in the Darkness
For whom have I labored? For whom have I journeyed? For whom have I suffered? I have gained absolutely nothing for myself, I have only profited the snake, the ground lion! The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI This is how...
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The Queen of the Night
The Queen of the Night (also known as the `Burney Relief') is a high relief terracotta plaque of baked clay, measuring 19.4 inches (49.5 cm) high, 14.5 inches (37 cm) wide, with a thickness of 1.8 inches (4.8 cm) depicting a naked winged...
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Astarte
Astarte is the Canaanite/Phoenician goddess of love, sex, war, and hunting who developed from the Mesopotamian deity Inanna/Ishtar. She is usually associated with the storm god Baal but seems to have been much more popular. She traveled to...
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Library of Ashurbanipal
The Library of Ashurbanipal (7th century BCE) is the oldest known systematically organized library in the world, established in Nineveh by the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (r. 668-627 BCE) to preserve the history and culture of Mesopotamia...