ISAW Professor Beate Pongratz-Leisten Publishes New Book on Myth and Cultural Memory in Ancient Mesopotamia

Beate Pongratz-Leisten, Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at ISAW, has released her new book, Myth, Text and Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: A Narrative Reading of the World (Cambridge University Press, 2026).

Describing the book, Pongratz-Leisten writes: "This book is about the power of story-telling and the place of myth in the cultural memory of ancient Mesopotamia. Rather than reducing mythology to an archaic state of the mind, this study redefines myth as a system of knowledge (episteme) and part of cognitive and cultural experience serving as an explanatory and orienting system. It demonstrates how among the multiple ways of world-making myth not only reflects experiences and reality but also constitutes and shapes reality in text and image alike. Drawing on cognitive semiotics, visual studies, and cognitive narratology, it explores the power of the image in showing and revealing something that is absent. Thus, it demonstrates the contribution of the image to knowledge production. The book calls for re-introducing meaning when dealing with the imagery and iconology of ancient Mesopotamia and introduces an innovative approach to the art history of the ancient Near East." 

Pongratz-Leisten’s work focuses on the interrelated topics of history, religion, literature, and art in Greater Mesopotamia, including Syria, from the fourth millennium into the first millennium BCE. Her research combines inquiry into textual and material records with theoretical approaches from history of religion, historical studies, anthropology, reception history, cognitive narratology and psychology, art history, and visual studies.

Her past publications include several books on the cultural and religious history of ancient Mesopotamia, including Religion and Ideology in Assyria and Herrschaftswissen in Mesopotamien.

Learn more about the book here.