Human: Babylonian Reflections on Labor

Acclaimed author and translator Sophus Helle considers an ancient creation story with themes of humanity, class warfare, and catastrophic climate change.

The Babylonian poem Atra-hasis is a forgotten masterpiece of political thought. Written in Akkadian in what is now southern Iraq during the early second millennium BCE, Atra-hasis gives us a glimpse of how ancient poets understood the society growing around them. This radical history of the world told from the perspective of the mother go...