For readers interested in learning more about ancient Mesopotamia and the Akkadian Empire, I have put together a brief list of scholarly resources which inspired the fictitious historical setting for the Inanna’s Bargain Trilogy. The list also includes resources used for some of my educational blog posts.
Afanas’eva, V. (1987). “Das sumerische Sargon-Epos. Versuch einer Interpretation.” Altorientalische Forschungen 14: 237-246.
Alster, B. (1987). “A Note on the Uriah Letter in the Sumerian Sargon Legend.” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 77: 169-173.
Amiet, P. (1952). “L’homme-oiseau dans l’art mésopotamien.” Or 21: 149-67.
Annus, A. (2002). The God Ninurta in the Mythology and Royal Ideology of Ancient Mesopotamia. Helsinki: University of Helsinki Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project.
Annus, A. and Sarv, M. (2015). “The Ball Game Motif in the Gilgamesh Tradition and International Folklore.” In Rollinger, R. and Van Dongen, E. (eds.), Mesopotamia in the Ancient World: Impact, Continuities, Parallels. Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium of the Melammu Project Held in Obergurgl, Austria, November 4-8, 2013, pp. 289-290. Münster: Ugarit Verlag.
Archi, A. and Biga, M. (2003). “A Victory over Mari and the Fall of Ebla.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 55: 1–44.
Aruz, J. and Wallenfels, R. (eds.) (2003). Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Asher-Greve, J.M. and Westenholz, J.G. (2013). Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources. Fribourg: Academic Press; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck Ruprecht. PDF available through University of Zurich Open Repository and Archive.
Bendt, A. (1972). “ ‘Ninurta and the Turtle’, UET 6/1 2.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 24 (4): 120-125.
Cooper, J.S. (1985). “Sargon and Joseph: Dreams Come True.” In Kort, A. and Morschauser, S. (eds.), Biblical and Related Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry, 33-39. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
Cooper, J.S., and Heimpel, W. (1983). “The Sumerian Sargon Legend.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 103 (1): 67-82.
Crawford, V. (1959). “Nippur, The Holy City.” Archaeology 12 (2): 74-83.
Dalley, S. (ed. and trans.) (1989). Myths of Mesopotamia: Creation, The Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deedes, C.H. (1935). “The Double-Headed God.” Folklore 46 (3): 194-243.
Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary (2006). Babylonian Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia.
Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (2003). Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford.
Foster, B. (2016). The Age of Agade: Inventing Empire in Ancient Mesopotamia. London: Routledge.
Franke, S. (1995). “Kings of Akkade: Sargon and Naram-Sin.” In Sasson, J. (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, II, 831-841. New York: Simon & Shuster.
Frankfort, H. (1939). Cylinder Seals: A Documentary Essay on the Art and Religion of the Ancient Near East. London: MacMillan and Co.
Gadd, C.J. (1933). “Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XII.” Revue d’Assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 30 (3): 127-143.
George, A.R. (2003). The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic. Introduction, Critical Edition, and Cuneiform Texts, 2 Vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gibson, M. (1972). The City and Area of Kish. Coconut Grove: Field Research Projects.
Hall, M.G. (1985). A Study of the Sumerian Moon-God, Nanna/Suen. Ph.D. Dissertation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Hamblin, W.J. (2006). Warfare in the Ancient Near East to 1600 BC: Holy Warriors at the Dawn of History. London and New York: Routledge.
Internet Sacred Text Archive: Ancient Near East (2010).
Jacobsen, T. (1939). The Sumerian King List. Oriental Institute Assyriological Studies 11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Knipe, D.M. (1967). “The Heroic Theft: Myths from Ṛgveda IV and the Ancient near East.” History of Religions 6 (4): 328-360.
Kramer, S.N. (1944) “The Epic of Gilgamesh and Its Sumerian Sources: A Study in Literary Evolution.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 64 (1): 7-23.
Kramer, S.N. (1944/1961). Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Kramer, S.N. (1984). “Ninurta’s Pride and Punishment.” Aula Orientalis 2: 231-237.
Kramer, S.N. and Maier, J. (1989). Myths of Enki, The Crafty God. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Langdon, S. (1932). “The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh.” The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 4: 911-948.
Lewis, B. (1976). The Legend of Sargon: A Study of the Akkadian Text and the Tale of the Hero Who was Exposed at Birth. Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University. Republished by the American Schools of Oriental Research Dissertation Series, 1980.
Liverani, M. (2014). The Ancient Near East: History, Society and Economy. Trans. S. Tabatabai. London: Routledge.
Margueron, J.-C. (2014). Mari: Capital of Northern Mesopotamia in the Third Millennium BC, The Archaeology of Tell Hariri on the Euphrates. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Matthiae, P. (1980). Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered. Trans. C. Holme. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Porada, E. (1948). Corpus of Ancient Near Eastern Seals in North American Collections:The Collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York: Pantheon Books.
Porada, E. (1993). “Why Cylinder Seals? Engraved Cylindrical Seal Stones of the Ancient Near East, Fourth to First Millennium B.C.” The Art Bulletin 75 (4): 563-582.
Pritchard, J.B. (ed.) (1969). Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Third Edition with Supplement. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Pryke, L.M. (2017). Ishtar. London: Routledge.
Shaffer, A. (1963). Sumerian Sources of Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Ph.D. Dissertation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Steinkeller, P. (1992). “Early Semitic Literature and Third Millennium Seals with Mythological Motifs.” In Fronzaroli, P. (ed.), Literature and Literary Language at Ebla, Quaderni di Semitistica 18, pgs. 243-75 and pls. 1-8. Florence: Dipartimento di linguistica, Università di Firenze.
Westenholz, J.G. (1997). Legends of the Kings of Akkade: The Texts. Mesopotamian Civilizations 7. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
Van Buren, E.D. (1933). The Flowing Vase and the God with Streams. Berlin: H. Schoetz & Co.
Van Buren, E.D. (1946). “The Dragon in Ancient Mesopotamia.” Orientalia 15: 1-45.
Van Buren, E.D. (1950). “Akkadian Sidelights on a Fragmentary Epic.” Orientalia 19 (2): 159-174.
Van Buren, E.D. (1953). “An Investigation of a New Theory concerning the Bird-Man.” Orientalia 22 (1): 47-58.
Wall-Romana, C. (1990). “An Areal Location of Agade.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 49 (3): 205-245.
Ward, W.H. (1910). The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia. Washington, DC: Carnegie Institute of Washington.
Wolkstein, D. and Kramer, S.N. (1983). Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. New York: Harper and Rowe.
Zettler, R. (1992). The Ur III Temple of Inanna at Nippur: The Operation and Organization of Urban Religious Institutions in Mesopotamia in the Late Third Millennium B.C. Berlin: Dietrich Riemer.
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