Living and Dying in Mesopotamia

Exploring life, death, and the afterlife in Mesopotamia, Alhena Gadotti and Alexandra Kleinerman examine how life and death experiences continually developed over the course of nearly three millennia of Mesopotamian history. To achieve this, the book follows the life cycle of the people of the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys from 3000 BCE to 300 BCE, from birth, through death, and beyond.
This book is the first to interrogate the relationships between living and dying through case studies and primary evidence. Including letters written by both women and men, the book allows readers to enter the minds of the ancients.

First, the authors focus on life through topics such as the rituals surrounding birth, marriage, and religion. The authors then examine the common causes of death, the rituals associated with death, and the Mesopotamian views of the netherworld, its gods, and inhabitants. Concepts of gender fluidity, both in life and death, are considered alongside evidence from epigraphic data.

Illustrating daily life as a multifaceted subject affected by time, space, location, socioeconomics, and gender, this book creates a window into the conditions and concerns of the Mesopotamian people.

Review: Living and Dying in Mesopotamia is an engaging account of what we know about the lives (and deaths) of ordinary people in ancient Mesopotamia. It digests an impressive amount of research in ancient languages and material culture with consistent differentiation according to gender and class. This book is a reliable introduction to the subject and provides a wealth of further literature. * Niek Veldhuis, Professor of Assyriology, UC Berkeley, USA, *
This is a well-paced and well researched survey that will introduce scholars and students to daily life in ancient Mesopotamia, often in the words of the ancients themselves. * Steven Garfinkle, Professor of History, Western Washington University, USA *