RESOURCESmanaged the passage through the Hellenistic period. For possible an-
tecedents one should at least consult works such as I. Mendelsohn's
Religions of the Ancient near East: Sumero-Akkadian Religious Texts
and Ugaritic Epics (New York, 1955), especially E. A. Speisen's trans-
lation of "The Creation Epic" on pages 17 to 46, and L. Durdin-
Robertson's The Goddesses of Chaldea, Syria and Egypt (Leiden, 1975).
Introductions to religion in the Hellenistic period are provided in
W. W. Tarn's chapter on "Philosophy and Religion" on pages 325 to
360 of his Hellenistic Civilization, 3rd rev. ed., (Cleveland and New
York, 1952) and by F. C. Grant, ed., Hellenistic Religions: The Age
of Syncretism (New York, 1953). One of the best sources of infor-
mation about pagans in third-century Iraq is in the inscriptions at
Hatra on pages 323 to 411 of J. T. Milik's Dedicaces faites par des
dieux (Palmyre, Hatra, TyrJ et des thiases semitiques Cl l'epoque ro-
maine (Paris, 1972). For pagan traditions in Late Antiquity, see
H. Gese et aI., Die Religionen Altsyriens, Altarabiens und der Mandiier
(Stuttgart, 1970).
There happens to be much more on the religion of pagan Arabs
because of the background it provides for the rise of Islam in Arabia.
There is also an early Arabic account of paganism by Hisham ibn al-
Kalbi (d. 819 or 821) called the Kitab al-a$nam (Cairo, 1914; 2nd
ed., 1924; repr. 1965) which has been translated into English by N. A.
Faris as The Book of Idols (Princeton, 1952). One of the earliest studies
of Arabian paganism is L. von Krehl's Uber die Religion der voris-
lamischen Araber (Leipzig, 1863; repr. Amsterdam, 1972); one of the
latest is T. Fahd's Le pantheon de l'Arabie central Cl la veille de l'hegire
(Paris, 1968). For Arab paganism in Iraq, see F. Buhl, "al-'Uzza,"
EI(l), IV: 1069-70, and W. Ismail, "The Worship of Allat at Hatra,"
Sumer 32 (1976): 177-79.
Astrology not only originated in Iraq, it survived there. For ancient
astrology, see F. Cumont's Le mysticisme astral dans l'antiquite (Brus-
sels, 1909) and R. Gledow, The Origin of the Zodiac (London, 1968).
Cumont's Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans
(New York, 1912) deals with the spread and influence of Chaldaean
ideas. The translation of the astrological work of Vettius Valens into
Middle Persian is treated by C. A. Nallino in "Tracce di opere greche
guinte agli Arabi per trafila pehlevica," in A Volume of Oriental Stud-
ies Presented to Professor E. G. Browne (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 345-
63, which is also published in Raccolta di scritti editi e inediti 6 (Rome,
1948): 285-303. The astronomical work of the seventh-century Mon-
ophysite bishop and native of Nasibin, Severus Sebokht (d. 666/7) is