Cosmogony and Cosmology: Sumerian Era

Thorkild Jacobsen: Professor of Assyriology, Harvard University, 1962-74. Author of The Sumerian Kinglist; "Mesopotamia" in The Intellectual History of Ancient Man  Reprinted by Permission.

Though the "Eridu Genesis" may have come close to treating existence as a whole, a true cosmogonic and cosmological myth that deals centrally with the origins, structuring, and functional principles of the cosmos does not actually appear until Old Babylonian times, when Mesopotamian culture was entering a millennium and a half of doubts about the moral character of world government and even of divine power itself. Yet, the statement is a positive one, almost to the point of defiance. [Read more] ...