SEAL: Sources of Early Akkadian Literature

"Akkadian, i.e. Babylonian and Assyrian, literature, documented on cuneiform tablets from Ancient Mesopotamia (together with Sumerian and Egyptian literature) is the oldest written literature of mankind.SEAL ("Sources of Early Akkadian Literature") aims to compile a complete and indexed corpus of Akkadian literary texts from the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BCE. This project, now in its second year, will enable the efficient study of the entire early Akkadian literature in all its philological, literary, and historical aspects. It is hoped that this corpus will form the basis of a Glossary of Early Akkadian Literature and of a History of Early Akkadian Literature.In its formative and classical periods (c. 2400 - 1500 BCE), Akkadian literature developed many different literary genres: hymns lamentations and prayers to various gods, incantations against a range of sources of evil, love-lyrics, wisdom literature (proverbs, fables, riddles), as well as long epics and myths - altogether more than 300 different compositions. Many of these compositions are not yet published in satisfactory modern editions or scattered throughout a large number of publications.At the current time (July 2009), basically all epics and incantations in the corpus, about 150 texts, have been processed (see the List of Texts)."