Created in the Image of God: The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Imago Dei by Scott N. Morschauser, Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Studies.  Morschauser writes, "[I]t is now generally accepted that the phrase is derived from 'royal language' attested from Mesopotamia and Egypt, wherein a king or pharaoh is sometimes called the 'image of (a) god.'...such an observation readily lends itself to the idea that human beings function as the divine image through the exercise of 'dominion' and 'rule.'"  Morschauser looks at the Image in the Ancient Near East; the Immediate Biblical Context of Genesis 1:26-27; Another reading of Genesis 1:26-27; Wisdom and the Imago Dei and the Reclamation and the Repristination of the Imago Dei and finally, re-integrating  the Imago Dei. Nov/Dec 1997 Theology Matters p. 1