PLATES

Man's Golden Age

Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

I.

A Scene from the Nippur Excavations: Rooms of the Temple "Tablet House"

8

II.

Oldest Literary Catalogue

14

III.

Nippur Archaic Cylinder

18

IV.

Gudea Cylinder

19

V.

"Chicago" Syllabary

22

VI.

Nippur Grammatical Text

23

VII.

Gods and the Nether World

32

VIII.

The Separation of Heaven and Earth

36

IX.

Enlil Separates Heaven and Earth

37

X.

Miscellaneous Mythological Scenes

40

XI.

Enlil and Ninlil: the Begetting of Nanna

44

XII.

Gods of Vegetation

50

XIII.

Enki and Ninhursag: the Affairs of the Water-god

56

XIV.

Enki, the Water-god

60

XV and XVI.

Inanna and Enki: the Transfer of the Arts of Civilization from Eridu to Erech

64 and 65

XVII and XVIII.

The Creation of Man

70 and 71

XIX.

Gods and Dragons

78

20.

Inanna's Descent to the Nether World

85

TEXT FIGURES

PAGE

1.

The Origin and Development of the Sumerian System of Writing

17

2.

The Deluge

99

MAP

1.

Sumer in the First Half of the Third Millennium B.C.

7