Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #561052 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 260 pages

From the Inside Flap
One of the world's foremost experts on Assyriology, Jean Bottéro has studied the religion of ancient Mesopotamia for more than fifty years. Building on these many years of research, Bottéro here presents the definitive account of one of the world's oldest known religions. He shows how ancient Mesopotamian religion was practiced both in the public and private spheres, how it developed over the three millennia of its active existence, and how it profoundly influenced Western civilization, including the Hebrew Bible.

About the Author
Jean Bottéro is the emeritus director of l'École Pratique des Hautes Études, quatrième section, Paris. He is the author of The Oldest Cuisine in the World: Cooking in Mesopotamia; Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and the Gods, and coauthor of Ancestor of the West: Writing, Reasoning, and Religion in the Ancient Near East, all published by the University of Chicago Press. Teresa Lavender Fagan has translated more than a dozen books for the University of Chicago Press.

Customer Reviews

An Illustrated Dictionary of Ancient Mesopotamia
Teachers and students have needed this book for a long time; previously, we had to depend on skimpy glossaries at the end of anthologies. Inevitably, for reasons of space and cost, those glossaries were very brief and not cross-referenced. This book, put together by two scholars in the field, solves this problem. In 192 illustrated pages, Black and Green have, in dictionary-style defined, explained, and cross-referenced to other items and illustrations, every god, demon, and symbol mentioned in the available Mesopotamian literature. Like good scholars, they are very careful when they speculate about meanings; they are factual and write clearly,linking, whenever possible, the item they're defining to parallels in architecture, sculpture, and literature. This is a very valuable resource since it puts into one text the best, most up-to-date scholarly understanding of the many gods, demons, and symbols that the ancient Mesopotamians poured so many of their imaginative energies into creating.

The Religion/s of Mesopotamia
Bottero offers a fairly concise review of Mesopotamian history and religion. The book is a good introduction to the topic for both students of religion, as well as general readers. My original interest in the book pertained to the correlations between Mesopotamian mythology and the stories found in the `Old Testament,' i.e. my interests were more literary than historical. Bottero does discuss some of the myths, etc.; yet his main focus is on religious practices and/or behavior. It's still an interesting read, and, overall, I enjoyed the book. But if you are, like I was, looking for an analysis of the Mesopotamian myths themselves and how said myths influenced the entire Mediterranean basin, I recommend the book "Slaying the Dragon" by Bernard F. Batto.

Good read in the field
This is a great summury of the subject, a great book if your wanting to learn the basics before you dive into more scholarly work. I strongly recommend it as a introductory read, though it can be complicated at times.