Hello, I enjoy reading about mythologies, ritual customs, and overall how societies treated/expressed religion. I have spent some time reading/watching and learning about norse, hindu, greek, roman, and other more recent mythologies. A lot of these have a collection of bodies that make up a good foundational point. For a famous example greek has the illiad and odyssey. Looking at sumerian mythologies it is seems to be less centralized in form and harder to learn about due to that nature. I have seen a lot of talks of samuel noah kramer and his translations of cuneiform in 1939 being a big source of discovery. The issue is I'm not sure if something like 'sumerian mythologies' by him is a good introduction point? Or would I be better reading translations of the Ras Shamra first? I feel more at a loss here of where to start. I was even getting confused because one wikipedia page said Ugaritic texts is not a part of cannan when another said the texts make up cannanite mythology. I hear mixed things about reading Sanchuniathons works and the accuracy. I just want to make sure my foundation of the understanding isn't grossly wrong, and is something that can be built upon. So I'm wondering what good books/media/anything are good introduction to the beliefs of sumerians, akkadians, hittites, cannanites later on phonecians and if their belief in cannanite religion has changed form. My end goal is to get a very general idea of the known history of Mythology for humans to see how it interacts and develops. I am just struggling going from classical Mythology to Ancient mythology where there less defined centralized books/resources for direct to use as starting points. I understand that the papyrus used by phonecians should have decomposed by now. Is archeological discoveries the best way to find those resources and get into the mythologies? If so what are good resources for tracking old and new archeological discoveries? Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this, and to anyone willing to help me in my search for learning more. I just want to get a more clear picture of their ancient beliefs and the reflected customs in society. I'm left wondering how the best way to start the journey is for ancient mytholgies without intact surviving religious texts.