num_pages: 184
description: This book comprises five poems dating from the height of the Babylonian civilisation in the second millennium BC. They include "The New Babylonian Creation", which was recited at the new year festival in honour of the god Marduk and his conquest of Tiamat, "Inanna's Journey to Hell", in which the goddess of fertility descends into a gloomy wasteland of devils and darkness, and "Adapa: the Man", a story of man's fall from grace, not through disobedience but through blind obedience. N.K. Sanders also translated "The Epic of Gilgamesh".
language: English
title: Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia
titlecomplete: Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia
genres: Mythology, Religion, Ancient History, Epic Poetry, Poetry, Literature, Classics, Anthologies, Nonfiction, History
ratings_count: 128
places: Babylon
publisher: Penguin Books Limited