![]() ![]() It is the very first section of this Sumerian “King List” that contains two brief passages of fundamental significance for the subject of this paper: the character and chronology of the Mesopotamian Flood as revealed in the available cuneiform material. But in spite of its defects and shortcomings it provides us with an historical framework of inestimable value if utilized with discrimination and understanding. To be sure, this unique document is actually a mixture of fact and fancy, and it is often difficult to decide where the one begins and the other ends. ![]() Now one of the most valuable of the cuneiform chronicle-like documents that has as yet been dug up from the Mesopotamian soil is the so-called Sumerian “King List,” which records the dynasties and kings that held sway over much of Mesopotamia from the time when “kingship descended from heaven,” that is from the very beginning of history, down to the early second millennium B.C. Lacking the essential intellectual tools of definition and generalization, and immobilized by a sterile, static view of man and his past, they became at best archivists and chroniclers rather than interpreters and expositors of historical truths. Historiography, the writing of history, was hardly a favorite subject of the ancient Mesopotamian academicians and men of letters. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |