The place of the Cedar Forest and Dilmun within Sumerian and Akkadian texts, and as connected to kingship.

Demons and monsters are inherently moveable creatures: from the late second millennium BCE onwards a number of demons and monsters migrate from their native Mesopotamian contexts, moving westward. Of course, these figures do not remain static throughout their journey, instead acquiring the characteristics of the different cultural contexts wherein…[Read more]

This article traces the different “lives” of Enheduana, moving from her historical origins in the late third millennium BCE to her modern reception.

The article examines the role of the seas in Sumerian and Akkadian royal inscriptions and literary texts from the third millennium BCE onwards. By tracing the presence of the sea in these texts, it becomes clear that the Upper and Lower Sea – or the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, though the former could shift geographically – could stand as…[Read more]

This essay provides an introduction to the topic of demons and the means of opposing them in ancient Mesopotamia during the early third to late first millennia BCE. Demons and witchcraft were integrated aspects of the Mesopotamian
world. They could threaten individuals, often causing illness or ill fortune, as well as target society as a whole,…[Read more]

The following essay considers the ways in which masculinity and femininity can be seen as potentially fluid, rather than rigid, categories in the ancient Near East, and furthermore understood as part of shifting nexus of power and agency – or lack thereof. Specifically gendered insults exploited the fluidity of these categories by focusing in p…[Read more]

Overview of demons and monsters in Mesopotamia, highlighting works in the Yale Babylonian Collection.

Review of: Jan J. W. Lisman, Cosmogony, Theogony, and Anthropogeny in Sumerian Texts. Vol. 409 of Alter Orient und Altes Testament. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013. In Rosetta 18 (2015)