ABSTRACT
The study of ancient Mesopotamian civilization may be said to have reached the threshold of a new epoch. The organization of the earth Dr. Kramer presents by retelling nine different Sumerian myths. The Hebrew and the Sumerian stories have as their theme this ever present social and economic contrast is not significant; what it significant is rather the utter difference of treatment and of underlying emotional attitude In the two cases. The shepherd-farmer problem and Its literary formulation must be different In a near-tribal community from what it is in a highly Integrated state. Indeed, the great problem which the Sumerian material raises is not a comparative problem; it is rather to understand, first and foremost, that literature in its own Sumerian setting, to interpret it as the expression of Sumerian culture itself. The central task of that project, the establishing of the text of the Sumerian literary compositions, the finding, placing, copying, and publication of new fragments.
