Desert Hawk Books

 

Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia
The Gilgamesh Epic and Other Ancient Literature

Rivkah Harris

 

304  pages
4 B&W Illustration
5.5" x 8.5"
Hardcover

Quantity:  $49.95 & S/H  

 

Rivkah Harris's cross-cultural and multidisciplinary approach breaks new ground in assessing Mesopotamian attitudes toward youth and mature adulthood, aging and the elderly, generational conflict, gender differences in aging, relationships between men and women, women's contributions to cultural activities, and the "ideal woman."
     To uncover Mesopotamian perspectives, Harris combed through primary sources - including literature and myth, letters, economic and legal texts, and visual materials. Even such pivotal cultural influences as the Gilgamesh Epic and Enuma Elish are reinterpreted in an original manner.

"Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia is a very important contribution to the study of the life course and its relationship to gender issues in ancient Mesopotamia. Rivkah Harris has expertise in and access to documents that others do not have, for example, documents related to women who lived cloistered in the temples during the Old Babylonian period." - John Maier, author of A Gilgamesh Reader

"Harris has done something special. Her work is highly innovative, opening up a new field of study for assyriologists." - Sara Mandell, coauthor of The Jewish People in Classical Antiquity: From Alexander to Bar Kochba

Rivkah Harris, Adjunct Associate Professor, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is the author of Ancient Sippar: A Demographic Study of an Old Babylonian City and a collaborator on The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.