Epics of Early Civilization: Myths of the Ancient Near East

This is the first of the Myth and Mankind books i have read, but I have really enjoyed it. It lays out a large selection of near eastern myths in a story format that is easy to read and understand, while also providing notes about variations on the stories and some background information on the re-discovery of these myths. The photographs are excellent and include some less commonly seen artifacts along with the classics (you can't have an ancient near eastern book without a picture of the Standard of Ur). Although this is not an extensive in-depth analysis of the myths, it is not overly simplistic or a children's book. It is a great introduction to the myths or the region and enjoyable to read.

This is easily one of the better developed Myth and Mankind books. The book is well rounded in scope between all of the ancient Middle East cultures and provides amazing comparisons between them. From Sumerian, Hittite, Babylonian and Assyrian myths this book does an exceedingly proficient job of providing suficient myths of the pantheons of all cultures as well as background and side/hero stories. The tales in this book are very invigorating as well as exciting and provide a wealth of information on Middle Eastern Mythology expecially in terms of pantheons, creation and hero tales. The stories as well are often accompanied with vivd pictures or descriptions to add to the whole flamboyant presentation of the book and provide real life evidence of the culture through history and artifacts. Much like the other books in the series this book does an exceptional job of using comparitive mythology to analyze the cultures of the region between each other as well as on a global view. The books power to provide direct and engaging examples of myth between cultures provides for an amazing view of how all the cultures shared beliefs as well as to how different cultures adopted and manipoulated certain myths for their own region. I would highly recomend this book as well as the rest of the Myth and Mankind series for a fan of comparitive mythology as well as a fan of ancient world culture an mythology.