How can Veeky Forums claim to be Veeky Forumserate when they haven't started with the Sumerians?

How can Veeky Forums claim to be Veeky Forumserate when they haven't started with the Sumerians?

Fuck... I just started with the Greeks...

You can read them in parallel, just remember that the Greek pantheon was copied over from the original Sumerian gods. Same goes for Egyptians, Canaanites and so on.

i read gilgamesh tho

boooo

You haven't read them have you?

Is this list a good starting point?

(((sumerians)))
Fake civilization

𒊐𒋫𒊏𒁺

I have read the book in the OP and while it was very interesting to read as someone who already has reasonable background knowledge, most of the myths are so fragmentary that I cannot recommend it as as stating point for bronze age civilisation.

I love those myths. recently reread Gilgamesh. Enuma Elish and Atrahasis are great too. really gave me a new perspective on early Genesis.

source?

When you look at the stories of the elder gods in the mythologies they are all very similar. Such as the arguments and conflicts between them, death and resurrection. As far as I understand at the moment, Enlil is Zeus, while Enki is Poseidon, Anu is Kronos.

>chad sumerian
>virgin greek

>Not starting with the Proto-Indo-Europeans

>copied
lel i forgot greek gods had fuckin fourteen legs and bird heads

Probably just the first volume would do to illustrate the similarities between the different ancient mythologies, and even how a lot of it was the result of territorial cross-semination.

I just started with the Sumerians. It's interesting to find out that any religion in the west and near east have traces of ANE -(specially sum. akk. and assyrian).
The cuneiform had an imense cultural influence. They cultivated a koplex writing system based on logogramms, basic math and astronomy. They didn't produce anything of importance concerning philosophical lit, though. At least nothing has been found in that regard. You'll have to start with the greeks if you're purely interested in philosophy. Seems like ANE people were very superstitious and the nonsense they believed in dominated their paradigm. The myths are interesting to read though. You will see that there are parallels between ANE myths and a lot of other cultures (e.g. Bible, greek mythology to some degree).

I essentially have anyway between a world's religion and ancient mythology course. I've read multiple accounts of creation and have done serious study of Gilgamesh, mainly on how the metaplot (form) of the story changes with plot events. For example, in what mostly complete version we have, Gilgamesh isn't even a hero-figure until after Enkidu dies (sorry spoilers), and after that Gilgamesh essentially takes on his role both as hero, and as a 'baggage' takes on something resembling his first experience of Enkidu: as a wildman. That is, when the spot opens in Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh fulfills that role by trying to resemble his predecessor. I also made a similar argument regarding worldly extremities (wood-garden) and role extremities (wildman-king). The goal of this was to, I suppose, dispute the bicameral brain meme, as well as provide a basis for understanding the Bible in formal terms.
I'm not an expert, but I sure as hell started with the Sumerians.

>Not starting by gazing at paleolithic cave paintings for extended periods of time
Plebs, all of you

>He didn't start with cave paintings.

But what about when he goes to Humbaba's forest to gather cedar wood for Uruk? Or when he defeats the Bull.of Heaven? Admittedly, it depends on your conception of what a hero is, but he may have started to become one before Enkidu's death.

Gilgamesh doesn't 'start shit' either time, Enkidu tells him to kill them. Gilgamesh is in a 'helper role' where he is essentially just there to kill things up until after Enkidu dies, where he kills things on his own.
Gilgamesh was willing to let Humbaba serve him and he obviously would have killed the Bull of Heaven, but was essentially ordered to do so.
Hell, he's basically a fucking golem. He doesn't even lead the way, or lead any ceremony (most notably the 'dream house', or however the translation phrased it, ritual).

>not starting from complete omniscience before all creation

Just binged through all the cave paintings.
Where do I go from there?

Yeah, it really is. I've been following it by coincidence, having researched myself where to start with things.

Kramer is a joy to read, concerning himself mostly with the character and mythology of Sumerian society. Only con is that it's about 60 years old, and there's been a fuckload of advancement in the field since.

Mieroop is more robotic, but essential for getting a more grounded, fact-driven perspective on things. "A History of the Near East" starts off pretty boring, mostly being about grain prices and trying to contrive history from that (economic records are pretty much all they have for that period), but things really pick up as you get closer and closer to 1st century BC and there's more archaeological evidence to draw from.

After Mieroop, I will read Pritchard, and then finish off anything Kramer has written, and all the myth/literature too ofc. After that it's egypt, and then after that I'll return to the region for Semitic history.