Howdy folks.
I'm very interested in ancient Mesopotamia cultures, languages, and symbolism. However, when trying to look up symbols found in ancient Mesopotamian cultures, I am often met with new-age mysticism rather than anything of real value.
What I do find that isn't nonsense tends to be cuneiform translations. While I do enjoy learning about the languages, my most significant obstacle is with regard to non-lingual symbols.
Cultures of interest for me are Sumer and Akkad. To a lesser extent, Babylon. I don't run into this same difficulty as much with the more ubiquitous cultures such as ancient Egypt and Persia.
Can anyone recommend credible books and sites to learn about these symbols?
Thanks!!
I recommend starting with Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia by Jeremy Black and Anthony Green. It's the best introduction to Mesopotamian iconography and is pretty affordable. Art of Mesopotamia by Zainab Bahrani also covers some of the most common iconography.
For divine iconography in particular, see the "Iconography" section of the entries in the Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses project.
The so-called Assyrian hieroglyphs, which are still somewhat poorly understood, were explored by Irving Finkel and Julian Reade in their 1996 article "Assyrian Hieroglyphs."