Ancient Voices

Ancient Middle Eastern literature includes the epic, wisdom, sacred, and narrative writings of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and neighbouring cultures. The Epic of Gilgamesh joins heroic narrative to questions of friendship and mortality; Egyptian instruction texts give counsel on conduct, speech, and public responsibility. Other compositions preserve hymns, accounts of divine action, journeys, and the fortunes of rulers. Clay tablets, inscriptions, and manuscript traditions carry these works across very different periods and languages. Their cultural value lies in the particular societies and religious traditions they record, as well as in the literary forms through which those traditions made their teachings memorable.