Ancient texts   Optional Readings

Four Accounts of Creation

Mesopotamian

• Enuma Elish The Seven Tablets of Creation translated by  E. A. Speiser. 2nd Millennium BC

• Babylonian Account of Creation, translated by W. Muss-Arnolt, a different translation of Enuma Elish.

• Enuma Elish The Seven Tablets of Creation, translated by L.W. King yet another translation

 Hebrew

Creation and Early Humanity according to Genesis, Book of Genesis, ch. 1-3.  Original Bible Project, translated by Dr. James D. Tabor, Ph.D., CenturyOne, 1997 version.

Egyptian

Egyptian Creation Myth translated by E.A. Budge 1912

Khepera Creation Myth comments on bowdlerization and presentism

Greek

Hesiod, "Theogony," --The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, H. G. Evelyn-White, translator.

Three Codes of Behavior

The Code of Hammurabi, translated by L. W. King (Babylonia c.1780 BCE}

The Code of the Assura,  from the Ancient Sourcebook. (Assyrian c. 1075 BCE)

The Precepts of Ptah-Hotep from the Ancient Sourcebook. (Egypt 6th dynasty 2300-2150 BCE)

Two Accounts of a Great Flood

Chaldaean Account of the Deluge, translated by W. Muss-Arnolt, in The Library of Original Sources.

Genesis Account of the Flood. Book of Genesis , ch. 7-11. The Holy Bible. Douay Version (New York, 1885)

 
Two Praise Poems of Mesopotamian Kings

Praise Poem of Shulgi  (c. 2100 BC) from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

The Annals of Sargon king of Assyria (722–705 B.C.), successor to Shalmaneser V. He completed Shalmaneser’s siege of Samaria in 721 B.C., thus destroying the northern Israelite kingdom forever. In 720 he defeated a coalition of enemies at Raphia. He captured Carchemish, subdued Babylonia, and advanced eastward to Kurdistan. He founded the last great Assyrian dynasty. Excavations of his palace at Dur Sharrukin (Khorsabad) have uncovered his personal annals, in which he recorded in detail his destruction of Samaria. His name appears also as Sharrukin. excerpted from "Great Inscription in the Palace of Khorsabad," Julius Oppert, tr., in Records of the Past.

Other Original texts in translation

Mesopotamian

Sumerian Goddess Inana attacks a Mountain Range Ebih from The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature

The Revolt of Heaven, (The Assyrian View of the Creation of Humanity) translated by H. Fox Talbot, in Records of the Past, being English Translations of the Assyrian and Egyptian Monuments, vol. 7.

Herodotus' Description of Babylon and the Babylonians in The History of Herodotus, tr. George Rawlinson.

Egyptian

Treaty of Peace Between Rameses II and the Hittites, translated by C. W. Goodwin, in Records of the Past, being English Translations of the Assyrian and Egyptian Monuments, vol. 4.

Inscription of Queen Hatasu (Hatshepsut) on the Base of the Great Obilisk of Karnak, tr. P. Le Page Renouf, in Records of the Past.

Excerpts from an account of the Battle of Kadesh between the Egyptians and the Hittites during the Time of Rameses II Excerpts from Gaston C. C. Maspero, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria.

The Invasion of Egypt by the Sea Peoples in the Reign of Rameses II. in "The Invasion of Egypt by the Greeks under the XIXth Dynasty in the Reign of Menephtah" translated by S. Birch, in Records of the Past. Warning this is very fragmented, but worth a look nonetheless.

Herodotus' Description of Egypt and the Egyptians in The History of Herodotus, tr. George Rawlinson.

Phoenician

Phoenician and Carthaginian voyages around Africa, according to Herodotus in The History of Herodotus, tr. George Rawlinson.

A Carthaginian Exploration of the West African Coast in The History of Herodotus, tr. George Rawlinson.

Greek

Homer, The Iliad ed. Samuel Butler. (English) (offsite at Perseus at Tufts)

Homer, The Odyssey,  ed. Samuel Butler. (English) (offsite at Perseus at Tufts)

Thucydides, On Writing History (On This site)

Thucydides, On the Peloponnesian War

Herodotus, The Histories

Aristophanes Excerpt from the Clouds on the Gods

Others

Herodotus' Description of the Arabs in The History of Herodotus, translated by George Rawlinson

Herodotus' Description of the Assyrians

Pliny's Letter to Trajan on Persecution of Christians