Creation Myths and Cosmological Concepts in the Ancient Near East: From Uruk via Hattusa to Athens

This paper brings together recent cosmological interpretations of the silver goblet of ˁAin Samiya, the Hittite rock sanctuary of Yazılıkaya, the Hittite spring sanctuary of Eflatunpınar and the Hittite ivory plague from Megiddo, which help to establish a geographical and chronological connection between the Near Eastern
cultures of third millennium BCE Mesopotamia and second millennium BCE Anatolia. It contextualizes the newly recognized cosmogonic character of these well-known but thus far largely enigmatic iconographic representations within the broader framework of creation myths, from Sumerian sources and Genesis to Plato’s cosmology in classical Greece.