• DOI:10.1017/S0041977X00022102
• Corpus ID: 162349822

Studies in Marduk

@article{Lambert1984StudiesIM,
  title={Studies in Marduk},
  author={Wilfred George Lambert},
  journal={Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies},
  year={1984},
  volume={47},
  pages={1 - 9}
}

• W. G. Lambert
• Published 1 February 1984
• History
• Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

For the hisory of religions the rise of Marduk, city god of Babylon, is one of the most striking phenomena known from ancient Mesopotamia. From being an utterly insignificant god in third-millennium Sumer, he had risen to be head of the Babylonian pantheon by the first millennium. The Münster thesis of Walter Sommerfeld, written under W. von Soden, is the first book-length treatment of this topic. As the subtitle indicates, it is largely restricted to the second millennium, the significant period because the rise took place within it. In fact third millennium evidence is dealt with briefly, but the first millennium is omitted. This is unfortunate because most of the religious literature dealing with Marduk is known from first-millennium copies only, though much of it was presumably composed during the second. In view of this uncertainty most of the religious texts about Marduk cannot be used within precise chronological frameworks.