부산대학교 도서관

This article focuses on the book "The Invention of Cuneiform: Writing in Sumer," by Jean-Jacques Glassner. By 2600 BC, cuneiform writing had developed into a tool sophisticated enough to write royal propaganda and literature, including mythological narratives and collections of proverbs. The book nearly founders in the first chapter, where an account of the ancient Mesopotamian literary tradition of the invention of writing by the legendary hero Enmerkar becomes bogged down in arcane detail. The treatment is excessively philological, hard to follow without prior knowledge and, in the end, unconvincing. But readers of academic inclination will find it worth persevering.