Sumerian Mythology

Samuel Noah Kramer’s Sumerian Mythology was a pioneering attempt to reconstruct the mythic world of one of Mesopotamia’s earliest literate civilisations from the surviving cuneiform tablets. Kramer introduces the sources and the difficulties of piecing together fragmentary texts before examining Sumerian ideas about the origins and ordering of the cosmos, the gods, humanity and the institutions of civilisation.

The study ranges across traditions associated with deities such as Enlil, Enki and Inanna, including myths of creation, divine journeys, conflict and the underworld. Because the book emerged from the formative decades of modern Sumerian literary scholarship, some interpretations have since been refined, but its historical importance and direct engagement with the tablets remain substantial. This University of Pennsylvania Press edition preserves a landmark work that helped make Sumerian mythology accessible to readers beyond the specialist field.