This book is a collection of 18 essays based on lectures and workshops organized between January and May 2016 by the editors at “Sapienza”, Università degli Studia de Roma, under the title Storia degli studi sul Vicino Oriente Antico. The essays examine the reception and development of Ancient Near East motifs in the popular culture of the past two centuries. With these essays, as Paul Collins says in the foreword, “we discover just how significant the Ancient Near East has been in influencing popular culture”. The areas of popular culture influenced by the Ancient Near East include: the visual arts; the performing arts; film and television; and novels and comics.

One of the strongest influences has been the idea that human civilization was initiated by aliens from outer space. This idea, primarily promoted by Zecharia Sitchen (1920–2010), has been entertained by American presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and by spokesmen for the Papacy. It is a widespread cultural phenomenon in the modern world. Zecharia Sitchen's 11 books have been translated into many languages and millions of copies have been sold worldwide. He argues that the Anunnaki, a group of deities in the texts of Mesopotamian mythology, were extraterrestrial beings who travelled to Earth from the planet Nibiru. They bred with creatures on Earth to create the Sumerians who created Mesopotamian civilization using alien technology. The Anunnaki eventually left Earth but they may return, possibly in 2022. The ideas in Sitchin's books have been further popularized in the American TV programme Ancient Aliens and in the 2012 film Prometheus.

Another strong influence on modern popular culture is the idea that evil originated in the Ancient Near East. Among those who supported this idea was E.A. Wallis Budge (1857–1934), keeper of the Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum. The exhibition of Assyrian archaeological finds in European museums and publication of translated texts from Mesopotamian mythology had a great impact on popular culture. The name and fame of the Mesopotamian mythological demon Pazuzu spread across the Western world. Pazuzu and the idea that evil originated in the Ancient Near East have featured in many films since 1922. The best known of these are the two horror films The Exorcist (1973) and The Evil Dead (1981). The Exorcist, directed by William Friedkin and based on the bestselling novel by William Peter Batty, tells the story of the demonic possession of an American girl and the exorcism performed to save her soul. The film begins in an archaeological site in northern Iraq where a stone statue of the demon Pazuzu is discovered. In The Evil Dead five young people spending the weekend in a cabin in the woods of Tennessee encounter and are possessed by a demonic presence after they find a copy of “The Book of the Dead” containing Sumerian burial practices and rituals.

Receptions of the Ancient Near East in popular culture also include the work of visual artists Joan Miró (Spanish) and Michael Rakowitz (American). In the performing arts there was the historical pantomime Sardanapal at the Royal Opera in Berlin in 1908. In the 1980s Norway was the home of black metal rock music with the song “Ea, Lord of the Depths”. In 1991 an episode of the TV science fiction series, Star Trek, featured a retelling of the Gilgamesh epic.