These tales from the ancient civilizations of the "fertile crescent" stand alongside the Odyssey and the Arabian Nights in being popular with an international audience at the dawn of recorded history. Here are myths of the Creation and of the Flood, as well as the fascinating Epic of Gilgamesh, a story of heroic failure in a moment of human weakness.

Edited and translated with an Introduction and Notes by Stephanie Dalley, Shillito Fellow in Assyriology, Oriental Institute, Oxford; Senior Research Fellow, Somerville College, Oxford