Welcome to MELC 211, Introduction to Myths of the Ancient Middle East! (Cross-listed as C LIT 360 A, and GLITS 315 A)
Here's the catalogue description: This course draws on mythic sources from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, and Israel (think 2000 - 500 BCE) to address questions such as, “For these ancient peoples, where did people come from? How did the world come to be as it was? And how did these myths shape their views of themselves?” The course highlights how different myths reflected different views of human life and how myths were reframed over time to serve new purposes.
What does that actually mean? We'll read and talk about a lot of fun myths, grouped around themes like Creation and Destruction, Becoming the King of the Gods, and Humans Looking for Immortality, and put them in their ancient social and historical context. We'll talk about why ancient peoples made myths, how they used them, and how they rewrote them to serve new purposes.
Here are a few of the myths that we'll read: The Book of the Cow of Heaven, the Baal Cycle, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Kumarbi Cycle, the Contendings of Horus and Seth, the Mother of Horses and the God of Snakes, Atra-hasis and the Flood, and the Disappearance of Telipinu.
No prerequisites. Final project instead of final exam.