The Historian and the Sumerian Gods
Thorkild Jacobsen
Journal of the American Oriental Society
Vol. 114, No. 2 (Apr., 1994), pp. 145-153.
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Sumerian Gods and Their Representations
Irving Finkel; Markham Geller (Edtrs.)
Cuneiform Monographs, 7
While the majority of ancient Mesopotamian deities existed, under dual names, in both the Akkadian-language and the Sumerian-language traditions, with similar or identical characteristics, it is salutary and useful to focus on the earlier phases, which are, typically, "Sumerian."
In this volume are collected thirteen papers delivered at a symposium held at the British Museum on 7th April 1994, in memory of Thorkild Jacobsen, who died in 1993.
The editors have provided full indices (of words and, in particular, of gods, demons and temples) and a brief introduction (together with a dramatic photograph of the youthful Jacobsen in Iraq, as a frontispiece), but essentially the papers speak for themselves.
It is a credit to the inspiration of Jacobsen that the occasion and the choice of subject called forth a collection both so varied and so relatively coherent, since such is not always the case with conference proceedings.
Enki, Martu, Nanaya, and Nanna are the deities who happen to receive treatments at length, but the volume covers many other divinities and areas of the Sumerian mental world. ...
Journal of the American Oriental Society, The, Oct-Dec, 1999.
