davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
Sure, ancient Hebrew mythology included lots of ideas that were widespread in their cultural environment at that time. (The "Flood", for instance.) There were ideas floating around the ancient Hebrews' world that everyone accepted, that were already ancient by that time and had a several thousand year history, even when the Bible books were first written.
On the university level, they already are. (And have been since the 19th century at least.) These would mostly be undergraduate Middle Eastern history surveys and more specialized upper division special topics classes. People specialize in it in graduate school. The scholarly literature on ancient Mesopotamia is so large that you couldn't read it in a single lifetime.
I am talking about teaching children about the Sumerians(who never declared themselves as gods, though there is articles supporting the possibilty that Enhil is the biblical God), not in science, history. It is also philosopy as it could explain mankinds origins. They shouldn't have to go to university.
It's probably of more historical than scientific interest. The history of technology would certainly be interested in their construction and agricultural techniques. They were early pioneers of irrigated crops, but built largely out of mud bricks. (The only building material they had, so their buildings haven't stood up to time as well as the Egyptians stone construction.)
Is archeology not a science?
Something between 500,000 and 2 million of these tablets are known, but most of them aren't Sumerian. Many are Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian etc., who also wrote in cuneiform on clay tablets. These are different ethnic groups and different languages, but part of the same general Mespotamian cultural tradition that lasted for more than 3000 years. Fewer than 100,000 of these tablets have been translated and published, so there's lots of work left to do.
The Sumerian tablets were found in Sumeria the Assyrian tablets were found in Turkey. So what are you talking about?