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Writings from the Ancient World #20
Epics of Sumerian Kings: The Matter of Aratta
Epics of Sumerian Kings presents for the first time both the authoritative Sumerian text and an elegant English translation of four key epics from the Sumerian literary canon. These epics, the earliest known in any language, revolve around the conflict between the cities of Uruk (biblical Erech) in ancient Iraq and Aratta in neighboring Iran. Of special interest is “Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta,” which contains the story of the confounding of human language, often cited as a source of the biblical tower of Babel narrative, as well as the Sumerians’ own account of the invention of cuneiform writing. In addition to providing English translations of the epics, Vanstiphout discusses their intellectual and cultural context, their poetics and meaning, and the significance of the epic cycle as a whole. The volume will interest scholars and students of Assyriology and the ancient Near East, biblical scholars, and general readers and will be a valuable text for courses on ancient Near Eastern literature or history.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2101
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June 15, 2018
The ancient Sumerian epics divide into two groups: those which make up what we call the Epic of Gilgamesh, and those which make up the "matter of Aratta". These four epics, known today as Enmerkar and Ensuhgirana, Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, Lugalbanda in the Wilderness and The Return of Lugalbanda (in Sumerian library catalogs they were just listed by their first words), were according to Vanstiphout's introduction probably originally composed under the Third Dynasty of Ur (2112-2004 BCE), about a thousand years after the invention of writing, and our present texts were probably finalized and copied in the scribal schools of the Isin-Larsa period (2017-1763); they are thus among the earliest works of literature, more than a thousand years older than the Homeric epics and the earliest books of the Old Testament.
Like the Epic of Gilgamesh, they deal not with the kings of Ur but with the earlier kings of Unug (Akkadian Uruk, Biblical Erech, modern Warka), just as the Greek epics dealt with an earlier Mycenaean era and much mediaeval literature looked back to the Roman Empire. They recount the conquest of the (otherwise unknown) city of Aratta, probably somewhere in central Iran but here more of a symbolic opponent, by Enmerkar, a legendary king and possibly considered the builder of Unug. The three narratives (Vanstiphout considers the two Lugalbanda epics to be parts of the same poem, although that is disputed by other scholars) are three different accounts of the conquest, although we cannot be sure whether it was thought to represent three variant accounts of the same event or three successive events, and if they are successive what order they should be read in.
In Enmerkar and Ensuhgirana, the conflict is begun by Ensuhgirana, the king of Aratta, who sends a message to Enmerkar demanding that Unug surrender and become a tributary of Aratta; he refuses, and a sorcerer living in Aratta puts a spell on a city belonging to the territory of Unug, which causes a famine; a "wise woman" from Unug then engages the sorcerer in a magic contest and defeats him, whereupon Aratta surrenders to Unug.
Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is the longest and most interesting; here Enmerkar takes the initiative, threatening to invade Aratta, and the Lord of Aratta (unnamed in this poem) proposes three challenges, which Enmerkar solves by superior technology (including the invention of writing, which is believed to have actually been invented in Unug). In the end, the two cities agree to trade the grain of Unug for the gold and precious stones of Aratta; the epic is essentially a myth of the invention of trade.
Lugalbanda in the Wilderness begins with a military expedition against Aratta; Lugalbanda is an officer in Enmerkar's army, one of eight brothers, who becomes suddenly very ill during the march and is left behind with a supply of food, but is expected to die; he prays to various gods, is healed, has a dream in accordance with which he captures some animals and makes a banquet for the gods. In a somewhat obscure final section there appears to be some sort of battle in heaven between various spirits (stars?) and there is a suggestion that Lugalbanda becomes himself something more than human. (Lugalbanda like Enmerkar is a legendary and perhaps deified early king of Unug; in some accounts he is the father of Gilgamesh.) In the second part/epic, The Return of Lugalbanda, he wanders in the wilderness looking for the army of Enmerkar, finds the nest of the Thunderbird, feeds and honors the chick of the Thunderbird and is rewarded by the gift of supernatural strength. The Thunderbird then leads him to the camp of Enmerkar, where he appears to the surprise of his brothers. The seige of Aratta is unsuccessful; Enmerkar asks for volunteers to return to Unug and carry a message to the goddess Inanna in her temple there, but everyone else refuses. Lugalbanda then volunteers to go back alone, and uses his magic speed to make the trip in one afternoon. Inanna gives him instructions on how to defeat Aratta (by catching and eating a magic fish which is apparently a kind of horcrux for the king of Aratta.) Unexpectedly, the epic ends here with a praise song for the goddess without describing his return to the camp or the defeat of Aratta. (Vanstiphout compares this somewhat remotely to Christian saints' legends, but surprisingly doesn't mention what seems to me the obvious parallel, the story of Philoctetes in the Greek Trojan Cycle.)
I am currently reading Thorkild Jacobsen's The Harps That Once. . . : Sumerian Poetry in Translation, an anthology published in 1987, which also contains two of these epics, Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta and The Return of Lugalbanda (Jacobsen considers the two Lugalbanda poems to be separate compositions) and while the basic story is the same in both versions the details are quite different; partially this may be do to a different selection of texts (the epics are found in many copies which are slightly different), but it also shows that we still do not understand the language perfectly. In particular, the "spell of Nudimmud" in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is translated in a totally opposed way; for Jacobsen it is a version of the "Tower of Babel" myth where the gods cause an original unified language to become many different languages, while for Vanstiphout it is a prophecy that the originally multilingual civilized world will all come to understand Sumerian (which in fact was a scholarly lingua franca for the entire Near East for centuries).
Like the Epic of Gilgamesh, they deal not with the kings of Ur but with the earlier kings of Unug (Akkadian Uruk, Biblical Erech, modern Warka), just as the Greek epics dealt with an earlier Mycenaean era and much mediaeval literature looked back to the Roman Empire. They recount the conquest of the (otherwise unknown) city of Aratta, probably somewhere in central Iran but here more of a symbolic opponent, by Enmerkar, a legendary king and possibly considered the builder of Unug. The three narratives (Vanstiphout considers the two Lugalbanda epics to be parts of the same poem, although that is disputed by other scholars) are three different accounts of the conquest, although we cannot be sure whether it was thought to represent three variant accounts of the same event or three successive events, and if they are successive what order they should be read in.
In Enmerkar and Ensuhgirana, the conflict is begun by Ensuhgirana, the king of Aratta, who sends a message to Enmerkar demanding that Unug surrender and become a tributary of Aratta; he refuses, and a sorcerer living in Aratta puts a spell on a city belonging to the territory of Unug, which causes a famine; a "wise woman" from Unug then engages the sorcerer in a magic contest and defeats him, whereupon Aratta surrenders to Unug.
Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is the longest and most interesting; here Enmerkar takes the initiative, threatening to invade Aratta, and the Lord of Aratta (unnamed in this poem) proposes three challenges, which Enmerkar solves by superior technology (including the invention of writing, which is believed to have actually been invented in Unug). In the end, the two cities agree to trade the grain of Unug for the gold and precious stones of Aratta; the epic is essentially a myth of the invention of trade.
Lugalbanda in the Wilderness begins with a military expedition against Aratta; Lugalbanda is an officer in Enmerkar's army, one of eight brothers, who becomes suddenly very ill during the march and is left behind with a supply of food, but is expected to die; he prays to various gods, is healed, has a dream in accordance with which he captures some animals and makes a banquet for the gods. In a somewhat obscure final section there appears to be some sort of battle in heaven between various spirits (stars?) and there is a suggestion that Lugalbanda becomes himself something more than human. (Lugalbanda like Enmerkar is a legendary and perhaps deified early king of Unug; in some accounts he is the father of Gilgamesh.) In the second part/epic, The Return of Lugalbanda, he wanders in the wilderness looking for the army of Enmerkar, finds the nest of the Thunderbird, feeds and honors the chick of the Thunderbird and is rewarded by the gift of supernatural strength. The Thunderbird then leads him to the camp of Enmerkar, where he appears to the surprise of his brothers. The seige of Aratta is unsuccessful; Enmerkar asks for volunteers to return to Unug and carry a message to the goddess Inanna in her temple there, but everyone else refuses. Lugalbanda then volunteers to go back alone, and uses his magic speed to make the trip in one afternoon. Inanna gives him instructions on how to defeat Aratta (by catching and eating a magic fish which is apparently a kind of horcrux for the king of Aratta.) Unexpectedly, the epic ends here with a praise song for the goddess without describing his return to the camp or the defeat of Aratta. (Vanstiphout compares this somewhat remotely to Christian saints' legends, but surprisingly doesn't mention what seems to me the obvious parallel, the story of Philoctetes in the Greek Trojan Cycle.)
I am currently reading Thorkild Jacobsen's The Harps That Once. . . : Sumerian Poetry in Translation, an anthology published in 1987, which also contains two of these epics, Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta and The Return of Lugalbanda (Jacobsen considers the two Lugalbanda poems to be separate compositions) and while the basic story is the same in both versions the details are quite different; partially this may be do to a different selection of texts (the epics are found in many copies which are slightly different), but it also shows that we still do not understand the language perfectly. In particular, the "spell of Nudimmud" in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta is translated in a totally opposed way; for Jacobsen it is a version of the "Tower of Babel" myth where the gods cause an original unified language to become many different languages, while for Vanstiphout it is a prophecy that the originally multilingual civilized world will all come to understand Sumerian (which in fact was a scholarly lingua franca for the entire Near East for centuries).
March 7, 2019
Epics of Sumerian Kings: The Matter of Aratta is a translation of four narrative poems originally written in Sumerian: "Enmerkar and Ensuhgirana", "Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta", "Lugalbanda in the Wilderness" and "The Return of Lugalbanda". The four poems are all variations upon the same theme: the controversy between the cities of Unug and Aratta, which ends in the supremacy of the ruler of Unug (King Enmerkar) over Aratta.
For me, this book was something to read more for the insight into an ancient culture and for the appreciation of some of the oldest known writing (originating from ~2000 BCE), rather than for pure enjoyment. Specific points of interest to me were the hints of the origins of the invention of writing (as a tool for providing economic advantage) and the use of nonviolent means to solve a conflict.
For me, this book was something to read more for the insight into an ancient culture and for the appreciation of some of the oldest known writing (originating from ~2000 BCE), rather than for pure enjoyment. Specific points of interest to me were the hints of the origins of the invention of writing (as a tool for providing economic advantage) and the use of nonviolent means to solve a conflict.
June 4, 2022
This was a reread for me. My feelings towards the text hasn't changed since my last reading of it in summer of 2019.
I just adore the four epics found within this book's pages. The settings of each story are fun and interesting. As are the semi-historical figures of Enmerkar and Lugalbanda.
With Enmerkar just shaking pretty important historical events out his sleeves, (the invention of writing, and the creation of a type of plastic) and Lugalbanda become essential the first every superhero with the gift of superhuman speed granted to him by the Anzud bird.
I'll probably never get tired of rereading these stories.
I just adore the four epics found within this book's pages. The settings of each story are fun and interesting. As are the semi-historical figures of Enmerkar and Lugalbanda.
With Enmerkar just shaking pretty important historical events out his sleeves, (the invention of writing, and the creation of a type of plastic) and Lugalbanda become essential the first every superhero with the gift of superhuman speed granted to him by the Anzud bird.
I'll probably never get tired of rereading these stories.
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March 19, 2016The lord of Aratta inspected the tablet.
The spoken words were mere wedges—his brow darkened.
The lord of Aratta kept looking at the tablet (in the light of) the brazier.
This short review is of a single excerpt from a collection of Sumerian mythology—concerning the invention of writing—called Enmerker and the Lord of Aratta (~2,000 BCE). In it Enmerker, the King of Uruk (Iraq), demands tribute from the king of Aratta (in Iran or Armenia). He relays his demand to a messenger, but the threat is too long and the messenger cannot keep up. So Enmerker invents writing, in this case cuneiform, so the message may be communicated in full.
The text reveals two cool facts about writing. First, it was invented for prosaic not artistic needs, and today we still retain hundreds (or was it thousands?) of cuneiform tablets of ancient Mesopotamia detailing administrative lists, tax records, state communications, etc. Only a small portion of these tablets contain literature, and part of the reason we haven’t, say, completed the Epic of Gilgamesh is because no one wants to pour through all that crap to find something of value. This myth is a fusion of both uses: writing as a tool, and writing as an art. Second, humans understood the power of literacy, and my favorite potion of the text is not Enmerker/the messenger’s rhetoric but the disarmed response of the Arattian king. Though the myth is incomplete, I feel an almost ominous foreboding that the king shares when viewing the tablet. Here is far more than a tribute demand from an enemy, but a world-rending power from a godlike civilization.
This revelation—that power gains permanence in writing—is not a new lesson (even for ancient Near-East literature) but I shudder, in both awe and fear, each time I come across it.
The spoken words were mere wedges—his brow darkened.
The lord of Aratta kept looking at the tablet (in the light of) the brazier.
This short review is of a single excerpt from a collection of Sumerian mythology—concerning the invention of writing—called Enmerker and the Lord of Aratta (~2,000 BCE). In it Enmerker, the King of Uruk (Iraq), demands tribute from the king of Aratta (in Iran or Armenia). He relays his demand to a messenger, but the threat is too long and the messenger cannot keep up. So Enmerker invents writing, in this case cuneiform, so the message may be communicated in full.
The text reveals two cool facts about writing. First, it was invented for prosaic not artistic needs, and today we still retain hundreds (or was it thousands?) of cuneiform tablets of ancient Mesopotamia detailing administrative lists, tax records, state communications, etc. Only a small portion of these tablets contain literature, and part of the reason we haven’t, say, completed the Epic of Gilgamesh is because no one wants to pour through all that crap to find something of value. This myth is a fusion of both uses: writing as a tool, and writing as an art. Second, humans understood the power of literacy, and my favorite potion of the text is not Enmerker/the messenger’s rhetoric but the disarmed response of the Arattian king. Though the myth is incomplete, I feel an almost ominous foreboding that the king shares when viewing the tablet. Here is far more than a tribute demand from an enemy, but a world-rending power from a godlike civilization.
This revelation—that power gains permanence in writing—is not a new lesson (even for ancient Near-East literature) but I shudder, in both awe and fear, each time I come across it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews