一艘孤零零的小船在今伊拉克境内底格里斯河下游一片广阔的水域航行，两岸是连绵不断的棕榈树，冉冉升起的太阳使小船成为一幅剪影。这幅古老的景象使人回想起世界上最古老的文明——苏美尔文明。苏美尔文明诞生于底格里斯河和幼发拉底河之间干旱的冲积平原，这两条河是它的生命之源。

Gilgamesh is considered one of the masterpieces of world literature, and although previously there have been competent scholarly translations of it, until now there has not been a version that is a superlative literary text in its own right. Acclaimed translator Stephen Mitchell's lithe, muscular rendering allows us to enter an ancient masterpiece as if for the first time, to see how startlingly beautiful, intelligent, and alive it is. His insightful introduction provides a historical, spiritual, and cultural context for this ancient epic, showing that Gilgamesh is more potent and fascinating than ever.
Gilgamesh dates from as early as 1700 BCE -- a thousand years before the Iliad. Lost for almost two millennia, the eleven clay tablets on which the epic was inscribed were discovered in 1853 in the ruins of Nineveh, and the text was not deciphered and fully translated until the end of the century. When the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke first read Gilgamesh in 1916, he was awestruck. "Gilgamesh is stupendous," he wrote. "I consider it to be among the greatest things that can happen to a person."
The epic is the story of literature's first hero -- the king of Uruk in what is present-day Iraq -- and his journey of self-discovery. Along the way, Gilgamesh discovers that friendship can bring peace to a whole city, that a preemptive attack on a monster can have dire consequences, and that wisdom can be found only when the quest for it is abandoned. In giving voice to grief and the fear of death -- perhaps more powerfully than any book written after it -- in portraying love and vulnerability and the ego's hopeless striving for immortality, the epic has become a personal testimony for millions of readers in dozens of languages.

古代社会生活史手册丛书全面介绍了古代希腊、古代罗马、古代埃及、古代玛雅、古代美索不达米亚、欧洲文艺复兴、日本中世和近世时期的社会历史生活。
《古代美索不达米亚社会生活》一书通过文字和图片的方式详细介绍了古美索不达米亚文明的发生发展，详细勾勒了古美索不达米亚时期的历史概况，全景式地再现了古美索不达米亚时期的社会历史生活。
作为古文明历史读本，该手册汇集了当代古美索不达米亚文明的研究成果，描摹了古美索不达米亚社会历史场景，也为古美索不达米亚文明的研究提供了重要的文献参考。

《伟大的世界文明》内容包括美索不达米亚、埃及、印度、美洲、希腊和罗马文明六个部分，可以说基本上覆盖了中华文明以外的古代文明世界的主要地区。通过实物陈列，集中地展示些具有一定代表性的珍贵的历史文物，使我国广大观众能有机会亲自观赏到世界其他文明所创造的文化瑰宝，从而加深对博大宽广的世界文明及其创造的光辉灿烂的文化的理解和认识，提高自身的历史文化修养和鉴赏能力。所以，《伟大的世界文明》本身就是对广大群众进行普及历史文化教育的一部生动的教材。它可以帮助人们开阔眼界，面向世界.认识世界.丰富自己的历史文化知识，提升自己的精神境界。历史文化教育是有中国特色社会主义文化建设不可缺少的组成部分之一，它的作用和功能是一般科学文化教育所不能替代的。

本书以罗浮宫博物馆、巴格达伊拉克国立博物馆、叙利亚国立博物馆、柏林西亚古物博物馆、大英博物等博物馆馆藏的美索不达米亚文明的著名藏品以及两河流域的古文明遗迹摄影图片为主线辅以专文，附上世界四大文明展报道，成为了解美索不达米亚古代文明艺术的最佳读物。

本书利用现代收集的各种历史材料，分成五大部分，85小章，用故事的形式把古代世界里发生在各个大洲的历史演变串联到一起，提供了一幅生动的古代世界史图像。

苏美尔王表是一份古代文献，发现于美索不达米亚各地，使用苏美尔语书写。目前发现总共有十六份，互相之间基本相同，是现存最完整的王表，而苏美尔王表是现代学者起的名称。此王表列举了官方的统治者以及他们统治的时间。按照王表，"王权"自天而降，然后从一个城市转移到另一个城市。王表中早先的君主大概都属神话人物，统治时间非常长。后来的许多君主，是实际存在的历史人物，但是王表也会将他们的统治时间说的很长。

The Babylonian and Assyrian Legends Concerning the Creation of the World and of Mankind. The Enuma Elish is one of the oldest stories known to mankind. It is a story first written down by the ancient Sumerians thousands of years ago. As a one time assistant in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum. L.W. King provides us with a qualified translation of the tables which were originally written in cuneiform script. The Enuma Elish is receiving renewed interest from modern researchers delving into the origins of mankind, the earth, and the solar system. Over the centuries a copy ended up in the library at Nineveh in the 7th century B.C., and was uncovered by archaeologists in the late 1800s. Written to cuneiform text and preserved on seven clay tables, the entire story was called "The Seven Tablets of Creation". After being translated the story revealed how the planets became aligned, how a cosmic catastrophe affected the earth, how mankind came upon the scene, and how the "gods" played a role in all of it. The Seven Tablets of Creation have had many profound implications since they were first discovered and subsequently published. They predate many parts of the Book of Genesis as well as other worldwide creation myths. Volume One includes this epic poem's English translation. It also includes information on parallels in Hebrew literature, the date and origin of the Babylonian creation legends, and more. Volume Two includes other accounts of creation, an Assyrian "Tower of Babel" story, and supplementary texts showing the actual cuneiform tablets.

"This splendid work of scholarship . . . sums up with economy and power all that the written record so far deciphered has to tell about the ancient and complementary civilizations of Babylon and Assyria."--Edward B. Garside, "New York Times Book Review"
Ancient Mesopotamia--the area now called Iraq--has received less attention than ancient Egypt and other long-extinct and more spectacular civilizations. But numerous small clay tablets buried in the desert soil for thousands of years make it possible for us to know more about the people of ancient Mesopotamia than any other land in the early Near East.
Professor Oppenheim, who studied these tablets for more than thirty years, used his intimate knowledge of long-dead languages to put together a distinctively personal picture of the Mesopotamians of some three thousand years ago. Following Oppenheim's death, Erica Reiner used the author's outline to complete the revisions he had begun.
"To any serious student of Mesopotamian civilization, this is one of the most valuable books ever written."--Leonard Cottrell, "Book Week"
"Leo Oppenheim has made a bold, brave, pioneering attempt to present a synthesis of the vast mass of philological and archaeological data that have accumulated over the past hundred years in the field of Assyriological research."--Samuel Noah Kramer, "Archaeology"
A. Leo Oppenheim, one of the most distinguished Assyriologists of our time, was editor in charge of the "Assyrian Dictionary" of the Oriental Institute and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago.

本书带我们走进了人类文明的发源地－美索不达米亚，即幼发拉底河与底格里斯河流域，大概位于今天的伊拉克境内。正是在这块如今看起来丝毫不吸引人的土地上，人类凭借两河的哺育步入了最早的文明，在这块神秘奇异而古老土地上，诞生了世界上第一座城市，颁布了世界第一部成文法典，创造了最早的文字，最早的学校，最早的图书馆，谱写了最早的史诗与神话，最早的《圣经》故事原型……
两河流域文明，对人类的贡献是难以估量的。尼罗河文明和印度河文明，正是在它的促进下发展起来的，希腊人从这里学到了神学，并将它广泛传播于世，阿拉伯人从这里学到了建筑学，并以此影响了整个中世纪欧洲。