First Glance

The Sumerians invented writing and then went on to use it to produce the first written work in the most popular genre in modern publishing: the cookbook. (So far as we know, however, they did not produce anything in the second most popular genre: the diet book!) The recent discovery of these ancient cookbooks gives Assyriologists the opportunity to interact with the past in a way rarely afforded to other scholars: They followed the recipes and ate the results (and so can you), as William W. Hallo describes in “The Oldest Cookbooks in the World.”

One of the world’s leading scholars on Mesopotamian civilization, Hallo has taught at Yale since 1962 and has served as the William M. Laffan Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature since 1976. He is curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection and a member of BR’s Editorial Advisory Board. Hallo’s publications number more than 150, including his latest book, The Book of the People (Scholars Press, 1991).