Old Babylonian literature is the literature of the most prosperous period of culture in Mesopotamia (Greek meaning "the land between the two rivers"), that is, the Euphrates and Tigris river basins. It is called "Babylonian literature" because the ancient Babylonian Kingdom from the 19th century BC to the 17th century BC has been the economic, political and cultural center of this region. However, the ancient Mesopotamian civilization represented by Babylon can be traced back to the Sumerian period. Its formation and development were almost synchronized with the ancient Egyptian civilization, and it is one of the oldest birthplaces of world civilization. As far back as 5000 BC to 4000 BC, the Sumerians dug canals in the two river basins and used river water to irrigate farming, creating an early developed culture in the ancient world. In 2369 BC, the Akkadians, a nomadic people from the northern Mesopotamia, conquered the Sumerians in the southern Mesopotamia and established the powerful Akkadian Kingdom. In 1894 BC, the Amorites, a Semitic tribe living on the edge of the Arabian Desert, defeated the Akkadians and established the Kingdom of Babylon. The famous King Hammurabi (reigned from about 1792 to 1750 BC) brought the kingdom into its economic, political, military and cultural heyday. The famous "Hammurabi's Code" is the earliest complete code known in the world. code. In the following historical years, the Kassites, Hittites, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Persians successively established countries on this land. In 538 BC, Cyrus, the king of Persia, overthrew the Neo-Babylonian Empire founded by the Chaldeans and started a different type of new culture.
The Sumerians further evolved the world's oldest pictorial symbols they invented into cuneiform. They used triangular or square short wooden sticks, bone sticks and reed sticks as "pens" and clay tablets as "paper" to write and record various language phenomena. Because when writing, the end of the writing stroke starts with greater force and the strokes are thicker. The end of the writing end uses less force and the strokes are as thin as a small tail. In this way, wedge-shaped text symbols appear on the written clay tablet. This wedge-shaped writing style is called cuneiform. After the surface of the clay tablet is filled with writing, it is first dried in the sun and then roasted in a furnace. This kind of clay tablet with cuneiform writing can form an independent document one piece, or several or dozens of pieces can be connected to form a book. This is the so-called clay tablet document, or clay tablet document. This writing system was widely accepted in Western Asia by the Akkadians, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Elamites, Mitanni, Hurits, and Persians. This cuneiform writing style is known as ancient Eastern Latin.
Similarly, Sumerian literature is also one of the earliest literatures recorded in writing in the world. From the deciphered clay tablets, we can see myths, legends and other literary works. Stories about the sun god Shamasi, wind and rain god Enlil, fertility and life goddess Ishtar, plague god Nergal, and narrative epics about the hero Gilgamesh of the Sumerian city-state Uruk, etc. It was inherited by later generations of Babylonian literature. Ancient Babylonian literature inherited the literary traditions of the Sumerians and Akkadians, and created myths, epics, fables, stories, proverbs, songs, prayers and other works on the basis of integrating the two. It was preserved in the form and was widely spread by the Assyrians. It had an important impact on Hebrew literature, Persian literature and Arabic literature, and also influenced European literature.
In terms of myths and legends, the Babylonians gradually turned from Sumerian primitive polytheism to monotheism, and the indigenous god Marduk was elevated to the status of the king of the gods. The famous creation myth recorded on seven clay tablets is named after the words "Enuma Elish" at the beginning of the work. It narrates that the main god Marduk defeated the primordial mother goddess Tiamat and created the heaven, earth, stars, The wisdom and power of all things and human beings, it represents the original thinking of the Babylonians on the origin of the universe. The image of the male god defeating the mother goddess and becoming the master in the myth is consistent with the historical process of human society moving from matriarchy to patriarchy. It provides the prototype motif for the creation of the world in the Hebrew "Old Testament Genesis" and the ancient Greek "Theogony". It is also the source of another famous myth "Ishtar Goes to Hades". Based on the Sumerian mythology "Ishtar, the goddess of love and life, went to the underworld to save her husband Tamz, the god of plants."
When the two gods of love and reproduction of life, "Gui", were trapped in the underworld, everything in the Yang world withered and withered, and it was a scene of decay and death. The gods were afraid that no one would sacrifice after the death of all living things, so they had to order the god of Hades to bring this to the underworld. The god "発" is returned to the Yang world, and everything in the world regains its vitality and prosperity. Almost all major ethnic groups in the world have their own myths that symbolically explain the mystery of the cyclical seasons. Primitive people internalized external sensory experiences such as the withering of vegetation, the rise and fall of the sun and the moon, and the reincarnation of the four seasons into symbolic correspondences. The mythical thinking of relationships is the primitive mentality of mythical thinking in human childhood. The above-mentioned Babylonian mythological explanations of natural phenomena such as the change of seasons and resurrection from the dead are intrinsically consistent with the Egyptian myth of Osiris in terms of original thinking. This resurrection myth has a profound impact on the literature of later generations.