Miraculously preserved on clay tablets dating back as far as four thousand years, the poem of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, is the world's oldest epic, predating Homer by many centuries. The story tells of Gilgamesh.s adventures with the wild man Enkidu, and of his arduous journey to the ends of the earth in quest of the Babylonian Noah and the secret of immortality. In addition to its themes of family, friendship and duties of kings, The Epic of Gilgamesh is, above all, about mankind's eternal struggle with the fear of death.
The Babylonian version has been known for over a century, but linguists are still deciphering new fragments in Akkadian and Sumerian. Andrew George's gripping translation brilliantly combines these into a fluent narrative and will long rank as the definitive English Gilgamesh.

苏美尔王表是一份古代文献，发现于美索不达米亚各地，使用苏美尔语书写。目前发现总共有十六份，互相之间基本相同，是现存最完整的王表，而苏美尔王表是现代学者起的名称。此王表列举了官方的统治者以及他们统治的时间。按照王表，"王权"自天而降，然后从一个城市转移到另一个城市。王表中早先的君主大概都属神话人物，统治时间非常长。后来的许多君主，是实际存在的历史人物，但是王表也会将他们的统治时间说的很长。

《东方文化集成》为季羡林教授所倡导，由中国东方文化研究会和北京大学东方学研究院联合组建的编委会负责组织撰写出版。
这是一项迎接二十一世纪东方文化复兴和再创辉煌的世界性文化工程。
本书分为五章，从不同角度对苏美尔史诗《恩美卡与阿拉塔之王》进行了解析，同时提供了以韵文为主、散韵结合的史诗全文汉译，并在译文中附加了学术含金量极高的大量注释。与以往西方学者的相关著作不同，本书突出显示了以下三个特点：1.对文本进行新的阐释和解读；2.以文本为根据对相关历史人物、历史事件和某些概念进行阐释和解读；3.对几十年来，特别是近二十余年来在西方学界展开的关于苏美尔史诗的讨论和争论进行梳理和评估。