Dahlia Shehata – författare

Das Zweistromland im heutigen Irak war schon immer ein ganz besonderer Flecken Erde, das war früher so und gilt auch noch heute. Dahlia Shehata erzählt die Geschichte der antiken Hochkulturen, die hier lebten. Sie berichtet von den Sumerern, die die erste Schrift erfanden, den Babyloniern und von König Gilgamesch. Vom Räubervolk zum Großkönigtum brachten es die Hethiter. Bis nach Ägypten erstreckte sich die Macht von Assyrern und Persern. Die Autorin betrachtet nicht nur die politische Geschichte der Völker, sie schildert auch deren Religionen, Sitten und Gebräuche. So erhalten Sie einen Einblick in den Alltag der Menschen in diesen frühen Hochkulturen.

Religions, Literature and Languages of the Ancient Near East have always been the main research interests of Prof. Brigitte Groneberg, and now take centre stage in this volume. Twenty four contributors have participated in composing this book, presenting their research dealing with Mesopotamian religion, Akkadian, Sumerian and Ugaritian literature and grammar as well as Babylonian history. Thereby several hitherto unknown texts are published and discussed here for the first time. This volume delivers new insights to several topics concerning Ancient Near Eastern cultures, being hence an important resource not only for Assyriologists and Sumerologists but for anybody interested in the field of Ancient Near Eastern studies.

This volume lays theoretical and methodological groundwork for the analysis of Mesopotamian literature. A comprehensive first chapter by the editors explores critical contemporary issues in Sumerian and Akkadian narrative analysis, and nine case studies written by an international array of scholars test the responsiveness of Sumerian and Akkadian narratives to diverse approaches drawn from literary studies and theories of fiction. Included are intertextual and transtextual analyses, studies of narrative structure and focalization, and treatments of character and characterization. Works considered include the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic and many other Sumerian and Akkadian narratives of gods, heroes, kings, and monsters.