Thorkild Jacobsen

A recreation of the spiritual life of ancient Mesopotamia demonstrating that the roots of Western civilization lie in the ancient Near East “A brilliant presentation of Mesopotamian religion from the inside, backed at every point by meticulous scholarship and persistent adherence to original texts... A classic in its field.”—Religious Studies Review The Treasures of Darkness is the culmination of a...

The eminent Assyriologist Thorkild Jacobsen, author of Treasures of Darkness, here presents translations of ancient Sumerian poems written near the end of the third millennium b.c.e., including a number of compositions that have never before been published in translation. The themes developed in the poems—quite possibly the earliest poems extant—are those that have fascinated humanity since the time people first...