Prof. Amar Annus is the Associate Professor of Middle Eastern History of Religions at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He received his doctorate in cuneiform studies from the University of Helsinki, Finland and was post-doctoral fellow at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures in University of Chicago. Annus has published many translations of ancient Near Eastern texts in his native Estonian. Among his books in English are The Standard Babylonian Epic of Anzu (Eisenbrauns 2001); The God Ninurta in the Mythology and Royal Ideology of Ancient Mesopotamia (Eisenbrauns 2003); and The Overturned Boat: Intertextuality of the Adapa Myth and Exorcistic Literature (Eisenbrauns 2016); and the edited volume, Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World (UChicago 2010).
Last Updated
July 5, 2026
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Standing in the Transjordan, Moses describes how the previous inhabitants had been the frightening, gigantic Rephaim (lit. “healers”). Elsewhere in the Bible, rephaim are powerless shades, living in the underworld, Sheol. Greek epic also preserves a memory of Meropes as a population of giants living on the island of Cos, and the term meropes also refers to “healers” who serve as priests of the god Asklepius. In both cases, these memories derive from the West Semitic Rapi’ūma, deified royal ancestors invoked in Ugaritic rituals to bless king and land.
Standing in the Transjordan, Moses describes how the previous inhabitants had been the frightening, gigantic Rephaim (lit. “healers”). Elsewhere in the Bible, rephaim are powerless shades, living in the underworld, Sheol. Greek epic also preserves a memory of Meropes as a population of giants living on the island of Cos, and the term meropes also refers to “healers” who serve as priests of the god Asklepius. In both cases, these memories derive from the West Semitic Rapi’ūma, deified royal ancestors invoked in Ugaritic rituals to bless king and land.
