Assyrians and Sumerians

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33448, 1 February 1974, Page 20

Assyrians and Sumerians

Gateway to the Gods. By Mary Teresa Ronalds. Macdonald. 295 pp.

“Gateway to the Gods” is a very clever book written by an astute young woman. Miss Ronalds has collected historical and archaeological facts and judiciously entwined them with a romantic story. Naquia, daughter of Merodach-Baladan, an adventurer and trouble-maker, wife of Senacherib, Byron’s Assyrian whose “cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold”, is the narrator of this outstanding novel. Most of the characters are historical personages and many of their activities have been recorded by historians or revealed by the discoveries of archaeologists. The narrative revolves around the Sumerian civilisation and whence it came. Who were the gods who instructed men in the arts of ordered living? At this point, Miss Ronalds adroitly endows her heroine with a 20th Century agnostic mind which asks the same questions, queries the imponderables of religious belief, and propounds the same theories and hypotheses as do her present-day counterparts. Despite the historical trappings, one is constantly disconcerted by attempting to relate such thinking to an era circa 600 B.C. That one does accede to the concept that man is essentially a basic creature, is a tribute to Miss Ronalds’s ingenuity. One does not expect to find flying saucers in an historical romance but the writer has most skilfully and credibly woven them into her book. “Gateway to the Gods” should appeal to a wide reading public since it so admirably combines such varied fare.