Gender and aging in Mesopotamia : the Gilgamesh epic and other ancient literature

Rivkah Harris’s cross-cultural and multidisciplinary approach breaks new ground in assessing Mesopotamian attitudes toward youth and mature adulthood, aging and the elderly, generational conflict, gender differences in aging, relationships between men and women, women’s contributions to cultural activities, and the "ideal woman."To uncover Mesopotamian perspectives, Harris combed through primary sources - including literature and myth, letters, economic and legal texts, and visual materials. Even such pivotal cultural influences as the Gilgamesh Epic and Enuma Elish are reinterpreted in an original manner. The Epic of Gilgamesh excites the modern reader with its poetry and adventure, but for the scholar, it also reveals ancient Mesopotamian attitudes about men and women and attitudes about aging. Rivkah Harris uses a cross-cultural and multidisciplinary approach to examine gender and generation in Gilgamesh and other ancient Mesopotamian literature. Harris examines Mesopotamian perspectives on the "ideal woman"; relationships between men and women; women's place in cultural activities; gender differences in aging, youth, adulthood, and old age; and generational conflict. To uncover Mesopotamian attitudes in the extant literature, Harris combed through literature and myth, letters, economic and legal texts, and visual materials.