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A Sumerian epic about the conflict between Enmerkar, king of Uruk, and the unnamed king of Aratta over the control of the land and the language. The story involves Inanna, Enki, and the Tower of Babel motif.
Read the full text of the Sumerian epic poem about the rivalry between Enmerkar, the king of Uruk, and the lord of Aratta, a mountain kingdom. The poem features the advice of Inana, the goddess of love and war, and the messenger's journey to Aratta.
Enmerkar, ancient Sumerian hero and king of Uruk (Erech), a city-state in southern Mesopotamia, who is thought to have lived at the end of the 4th or beginning of the 3rd millennium bc. Along with Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh, Enmerkar is one of the three most significant figures in the surviving Sumerian epics.
May 21, 2024 · Who are Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta? Enmerkar, the king of Uruk, was a prominent figure in Sumerian mythology and history. The Lord of Aratta, whose name remains unknown, represents the ruler of the rival city of Aratta in the legend.
- Background
- The Matter of Aratta
- Conclusion
The Uruk Period, which saw the foundation and growth of cities throughout Mesopotamia, was followed by the Early Dynastic Period (2900-2334 BCE) during which Sumerian culture flourished. The city-states were then conquered by Sargon of Akkad (Sargon the Great, r. 2334-2279 BCE) and absorbed into his Akkadian Empire which fell to the Gutians in 2218...
Aratta is depicted in several Sumerian poems, pre-dating theMatter of Aratta, as a city of fabulous wealth which lay far beyond the boundaries of Sumer. Modern-day scholars tend to place it somewhere in ancient Elam, past Susa (in modern Iran). In the poems of the Matter of Aratta, it can only be reached by traversing over seven mountains and is a ...
Lugalbanda is best known today as the father of the hero Gilgamesh and husband of the goddess Ninsun from The Epic of Gilgamesh. In that story, Gilgamesh begins as a proud and haughty king who must learn humility through the loss of his friend Enkidu, but, in these tales, Lugalbanda is depicted from the beginning as a devout servant of the gods who...
- Joshua J. Mark
Jul 3, 2014 · A Sumerian epic poem about the rivalry between Enmerkar, the priest-king of Uruk, and the lord of Aratta, a mountain kingdom. The poem invokes the goddess Inanna, the patron of Uruk, and features the ziggurat temple, the gemstone lapis lazuli, and the flying sky-disc.
The lord of Aratta refuses but wants to enter into a contest with Enmerkar to see on which side Inanna lay. The unnamed lord of Aratta sends three riddles to reconsider his submission: To cart grain to Aratta in open nets instead of bags, Enmerkar uses sprouting barley to close the interstices of the nets so that no grain is spilled.
